Google
This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project
to make the world's books discoverable online.
It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject
to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books
are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.
Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the
publisher to a library and finally to you.
Usage guidelines
Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing tliis resource, we liave taken steps to
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:
+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for
personal, non-commercial purposes.
+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.
+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for in forming people about this project and helping them find
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.
+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe.
About Google Book Search
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web
at|http: //books .google .com/I
nwrn^nn
1 il. ijkL„
^^^^^^B^^H^^KnffiwIKjy^'' ■ ' - ■_ '~i^^^m
^^^^^K^Bi^^^ftlbv'* ''' ''^Sl
^^^^^■vSwiii'/idi'i-^^ ' ' ' '' •j^M
^^K;i^Stt'^j, y^'^^^^M
t
^^^^HP^ -t>^£>^i'7/i»^^Rimfl
-aij^B^WlSWBffifffii;'
■^ 'A V '.''"j""^
'
\-'-^m^-4
% \%
*
rAWte'
y^^:^!M^W^:^:'n ^''-'
'.■■/;■- :■ ^"^" n i it" v^ J \
i
^1
ETCHING AND ETCHERS
/
ETCHING & ETCHERS
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON,
AUTHOR OF THE ' INTELLECTUAL LIFE,' ETC
!
f^
^4 M
^-V
"^^^^ «
Wmt ^S^
S"^
^V^ '
'^Jjj^
^^^^ i
91
If,.
NEW EDITION. ILLUSTRATED
MACMILLAN AND CoN-il-^
1876
Weet gij wat etsen is? — Het is flaneeren
Op 't koper ; 't is in 't zomerschemeruur
Met malsche vedelsnaren fantaseeren.
't Zijn hartsgeheimtjes, die ons de natuur
Vertrouwt, bij 't dwalen op de hei, bij 't staren
In zee, naar 't wolkjen in het zwerk, of waar
In't biezig meer wat eendjes spelevaren ;
't Is duivendons en klauw van d' adelaar.
Romeros in een nootje, en tien geboden
Op 't vlak eens stuivertjes ;— een wensch, een zucht,
Gevat in fijn geciseleerde oden.
Een ras gegrepen beeldje in vogelvlucht
't Is op 't gevoelig goudkleur koper malen
Met d' angel eener wesp en 't fulpen stof
Der vlinderwiek, gegloeid van zonnestralen ;
De punt der naald die juist ter snede trof
Wat in des kunstnaars rijke dichterziel
Uit fantasie en leven samenvieL
C. VOSMAER.
Know ye what etching is? It is to ramble
On copper ; in a summer twilight's hour
To let sweet Fancy fiddle tunefully.
It is the ^diispering torn Nature's heart.
Heard when we wander on the moor, or gaze
On the sea, on fleecy clouds of heaven, or at
The rushy lake when playful ducks are splashing ;
It is the down of doves, the eagle's claw ;
Tis Homer in a nutshell, ten commandments
Writ on a penny's surface ; 'tis a wish,
A sigh, comprised in finely<hiselled odes,
A little image in its bird's-fli^t cau^t
It is to paint on the soft gold-hued copper
\^th sting of wasp and velvet of the wings
Of butterfly, by sparkling sunbeams glowed.
Even so the etcher's needle, on its point,
Doth catch what in the artist-poef s mind
Reality and fancy did create.
Translated by Holda.
TO
FRANCIS SEYMOUR HADEN.
XJ" ERE is a book written to increase the public interest in
an art we both love ; and I dedicate it to you because,
in the more difficult way of practical demonstration, you have
well helped the same cause. It may be a useful service to
take a pen and tell a somewhat indifferent, or otherwise inte-
rested public, how great an art etching is ; but it is a far
higher achievement to take an etching-needle and compel
attention by the beauty of actual performance. The recep-
tion your etchings met with — ^a reception unprecedented in the
history of the art — must have been gratifying to your feelings
as an artist ; but I am sure that I interpret your sentiments
justly, in supposing that you felt a still keener and nobler
pleasure than that which attends any merely personal success.
You have the satisfaction of knowing that a great art, hitherto
grievously and ignorantly neglected, has, by your labours,
received an appreciable increase of consideration ; and that,
as a consequence of the celebrity of your works, many have
become interested in etching, who, before their appearance,
were scarcely even aware of its existence. It is rather with
reference to this result of your labours than to their purely
DEDICATION.
artistic value that I dedicate this book to you, though, at the
same time, it may be right to add briefly here, what I have
said more at length elsewhere, that of all modem etchers you
seem to be the most completely in unison with the natural
tendencies of the art How much this implies, and what warm
approval may be expressed in this moderate way, the reader
will see elsewhere.
PREFACE.
T^HE first edition of this work has been for some time ex-
hausted, and copies of it are only to be had occasionally
from dealers in rare books, at fancy prices. In the present
»
edition the book takes its permanent form, for it is stereotyped,
and care has therefore been taken about the revision of it.
Besides revising what was already written, I have brought
my work down to the latest dates by adding notices of the
most recent etchings of importance, and by explaining the
newest practical improvements in the craft of etching itself
which are of proved utility and accepted by eminent workmen.
The present edition contains, indeed, more than two hundred
pages of entirely new matter, so that it may be considered as
a supplement to the first There are also eight illustrations
which did not appear in the first edition.
It is necessary to give a few words of explanation about
the plates. The book was originally illustrated with impres-
sions from original old and modem coppers which were got
together temporarily by dint of good luck, considerable ex-
pense, and infinite personal trouble. It was impossible to
purchase them, and when we had printed the number of copies
necessary for our first edition, we were obliged by our contract
to return the plates to their owners. We could not, if we
xii PREFACE.
would, get those coppers together again, and it has been
thought desirable that the present edition should be cheaper
than it could have been with magnificently abundant illustra-
tion. It was therefore finally decided that the etchings should
now be of minor importance, and that they should be given
not at all as " embellishments," but isimply to make the text
more intelligible. As an instance of this may be mentioned the
plate from Turner, copied from the " Little Devil's Bridge."
It does not exhibit Turner's power of composition, for it is
only part of a subject ; it cannot show his mastery over light
and shade, for the mezzotint which gave the light and shade
is omitted ; but it exhibits Turner's way of drawing and biting
his organic lines, and that is why it is given in this volume.
For this particular purpose it is positively more useful than
the original, since in the original the lines are much obscured
by dark mezzotinting, which was applied to the plate by
Charles Turner after J. M. W. Turner had etched it To make
the lines very plain, the printer has been told to print as simply
and clearly as. possible, merely that the reader might see what
Turner's lines were like. The etchings from other masters are
in almost every instance portions of plates selected for some
special reason, and not to make the book look pretty. It was
suggested that by one of the remarkable new photographic
processes sufficiently accurate copies of etchings might have
been given at a cheap rate ; but it seemed that in a book of a
practical kind like this it was very desirable that the reader
should have plates really produced by the processes of etching
which are described and so often alluded to in its pages. I
therefore took the trouble to copy portions of plates by various
PREFACE. xiii
masters (a very heavy piece of work, though the result of it
looks so slight); and as students of etching can learn more from
real plates, when they know how they have been bitten, than
from any quantity of vague verbal explanation about getting
lines "dark** or "pale," I have also published my own private
registers of biting. Reviewers sometimes say very unkind
things of me for giving explanations of this technical kind,
which they neither know nor care anything about, but art
students write to express their gratitude, and only beg that
the explanations may be made still clearer and more precise.
Between the two I cannot hesitate. The satisfaction of being
in some measure useful to real workers is so substantial a
satisfaction, that it far outweighs any momentary annoy-
ance which may be inflicted by the sneers of an ill-natured
reviewer who may happen to be vexed with me for knowing
more about my own subject than he possibly can know.
At the same time hearty thanks are offered to many critics
who helped this book when it first appeared, and whose
cordial expressions of approbation no doubt largely contri-
buted to its success.
It was written originally with a view to certain purposes
of a kind that may be called permanent, and others which
were only temporary. I wished to help in transmitting the
good and sound tradition of etching — ^this was the permanent
purpose ; but I wished also to exercise some influence of a kind
that might be practically useful on the work of the younger
men at the present time ; and this, in a certain sense, was a
temporary purpose. The best way to do this seemed to be an
outspoken criticism of some recent etchers who had influence
xiv PREFACE.
because they were celebrated painters. It is a popular error
to imagine that because a man can paint cleverly he must also
be able to etch. The knowledge of a painter has usually, it is
true, been the magazine of material from which eminent etchers
have selected, by a high faculty of choice, what they put into
their etchings ; but when this selecting faculty is absent, the
knowledge of a painter ceases to be available in this art I
have myself actually seen accomplished painters trying what
they could do on the copper, and seen them puzzled, uncertain,
feeble, though they were an3rthing but feeble with the brush.
" He has painted many a picture," says one who can etch, of a
painter such as I have just alluded to, ''and by dint of search-
ing with opaque materials has even earned the reputation, such
as it is, of ' finish.' For the first time he finds himself under
the necessity of considering every stroke. He b^ns, and has
soon made a hundred where a master would have made one ;
but he goes on, and at the expense of many qualities which as
a painter he could have held dear, he arrives at last ' How
finished ! * says one ; * How worthless ! ' another — for the last
knows what the first, possibly, does not — that it is one thing
to cover a plate with work until the effect has been obtained,
and another to obtain it with little, or rather with the appear-
ance of little. Etching is not painting, but an art (though in
close alliance with painting) in all respects distinct He who
so mistakes its end, intention, and scope, as to overlay his work
till all brilliancy and transparence have gone out of it, is con-
founding two things, and only labouring to produce opacity."
Holding these opinions, I criticised some painters severely as
etchers, whilst admiring their pictures very heartily for their
PREFACE. XV
own merits ; but some of the severer of these criticisms are
withdrawn from the present edition, as the book has now taken
its permanent form, and it is not desirable to perpetuate
much criticism of that kind, however just and necessary it may
be when first written. Thus the chapter on David Roberts is
withdrawn : it was inserted originally because his very poor
and unintelligent work in etching had been injudiciously held
up as a model Mr. Holman Hunt also came in for a page
of critidsm severe enough to convey the impression, as I
learned afterwards, of some personal vengeance or animosity.
As it happens that I have always felt a great respect for Mr.
Hunt's strength of resolution and honesty of purpose in his
career as a painter, and also for his accomplished skill (without
mentioning his higher gifts, which cannot be dealt with in a
parenthesis), I am glad to put an end to this misunderstand-
ing by withdrawing the page in question. A friend and corre-
spondent, who is himself one of the finest etchers in Europe,
told me that he thought highly of a small etching by Mr.
Holman Hunt, representing an Egyptian scene with the pyra-
mids, and the reader may rely upon his opinion.
A well-known English Academician, not an acquaintance
of mine, wrote to me to offer a piece of unasked-for advice,
which was to avoid mentioning living men in my writings,
because, he said, ''it savours of diqueism." In this, however,
as in other matters, a writer must exercise his own judgment.
Much of the sort of usefulness aimed at in the present volume
would not be attained if living artists were omitted from its
pages. My work with reference to living men consists almost
always in drawing public attention to their merits, and it seems
xvi PREFA CE.
better that this should be done for them whilst they are
alive, and can reap the benefit of any increase of reputation,
than after they are dead, when praise will be of no use to
them. I belong to no clique whatever, and I never have
belonged to any clique. Most of my work has been done in
a foreign country, and when in London or Paris I have gene-
rally been much too busily occupied to have time for the
cultivation of cliqueish sentiments. The volume the reader
holds in his hand is indeed a sufficient reply to such an accu-
sation as this, for it praises with equal warmth etchers of the
most opposite qualities and schools when their work has
seemed to be good in its own kind.
Another accusation which has been to some extent cir-
culated both in the English and American press may deserve
some words of answer. It has been said of my writings that
they exercise a bad influence by exalting mechanism above
mind, because they happen to contain a good deal- of tech-
nical information. It is quite true that technical matters
always seem to me extremely interesting, as they do to all
who are not prevented by sheer ignorance from entering into
such questions ; all artists delight in them, and even in their
difficulties, as mathematicians delight in their problems, and
chess-players in theirs. But I have never regarded technical
skill as an)rthing more than a means of mental expression,
and I have at all times earnestly and energetically maintained
the supreme importance of mental power in art, and as
energetically condemned the base mechanical skill which is
uninformed by noble thought and feeling. Those critics,
therefore, who have accused me of exalting mechanism above
PREFACE. xvii
mind say what is contrary to the truth, and are guilty either
of unpardonable presumption in speaking of a writer they
have not read, or else of yet more unpardonable dishonesty
in wilfully misrepresenting him. My teaching about art sub-
ordinates everything to the mind of the artist, even that truth
to nature which a modem superstition reg^ds as if it were
something sacred The following extracts from writings
which have been before the public for years are sufficient
evidence of this, and the reader will find more recent matter
in the present volume, especially in the chapter on the
Revival of Etching in England, which maintains and confirms
the same principles.
'' The art of etching has no mechanical attractiveness. If
an etching has no meaning it can interest nobody; if its
significant lines are accompanied by many insignificant ones,
their value is neutralised." — Etching and Etchers^ book i.
ch. iiL
*' A great etching is the product of a grandly-constituted
mind ; every stroke of it has value exactly proportionate to
the mental capacity of the artist ; so that a treatise on etch-
ing is necessarily a treatise on the mental powers of great
men." — Etching and Etchers^ book i. ch. vil
"' Above all, it should be well understood that etching is
not, as some imagine, a fit pastime for small minds ; but that,
on the contrary, its great glory is to offer the means of
powerful and summary expression to the largest." — Etching
and Etchers^ book L ch. vii.
"The etcher needs, no doubt, some manual skill, some
patience, and a moderate amount of care, but these avail him
xviii PREFA CE.
nothing if they are accompanied by the engraver's coldness.
The one capacity which makes all his other powers available
is the capacity for passionate emotion." — Etching and Etchers,
book i. ch. xii.
"What makes a good etching so peculiarly precious is
that it gives lis meaning severed as widely as possible from
mere handicraft It is a lump of gold dug out of the artist's
brain, and not yet alloyed for general circulation. But when
artists thus trenchantly sever mechanism from mind, and offer
mind by itself, they discover, of course, that it is not a very
saleable commodity." — Signed article in the Fine Arts Qtiar-
terly Review for January 1864,
" So far from being the most mechanical kind of engraving,
etching, as we understand it, is the least mechanical, because
the true etchers never think about mechanical perfections at
all, using lines simply for the expression of artistic thought."
— The Etcher^ s Handbook^ ch. xviii.
" We affirm that an etched line, as a good etcher draws it,
is less mechanical than a burin line, since its modulations,
produced by the operation of the intellect, or feeling of the
artist, are more numerous and delicate, because the tool is
more obedient The anxiety to attain mechanical perfection
would probably injure an etcher by diminishing the spon-
taneousness of his expressioa" — The Etcher's Handbook,
ch. xviii.
"The true finish lies in the intensity and successfulness
of the mental act, and that may be proved quite as much
by selection and omission as by hand-labour. Always
endeavour, in etching, to express your thought in as few
PREFACE. xix
lines as may be, and to put as much meaning into each of
those few lines as it can possibly be made to convey. The
real finish in etching resides there." — Tlie Etcher's Handbooh
ch. xxii.
"The qualities of autograph would be sacrificed if me-
chanical exactness had to be obtained at all costs ....
autograph is a mental expression in itself." — Thoughts about
Art, ch. xxiii. note.
It is always a mistake to attribute too much importance
to manual skill in etching, or in any other of the great arts.
When there is the true understanding of nature, and the true
artistic sentiment, manual skill usually comes with practice,
and the greatest artists never trouble themselves about it,
warning their pupils against anxiety on that score. — Etching
and Etchers, book il ch. ii.
It would be easy to go on accumulating extracts of this
kind, but it is not necessary. Enough has been quoted to
show how audaciously dishonest it is to accuse me of setting
handicraft above spiritual power in the fine arts.
July 1875.
CONTENTS.
BOOK I.
^ofners atiK ^dualities of ^e ^rt.
CHAPTER I,
PAGB
Etching compared with other Arts i
CHAPTER 11.
Difficulties and Facilities of Etching .... 22
CHAPTER III.
The Popular Estimate of Etching 27
CHAPTER IV.
The Influence of Connoisseurship 31
CHAPTER V.
Criticism and Practical Work 36
CHAPTER VI.
Favourable and Unfavourable Artistic Conditions 40
CHAPTER VII.
Comprehensiveness 43
CHAPTER VIII.
Abstraction 47
xxu CONTENTS,
CHAPTER IX.
PAGB
Selection 50
»
CHAPTER X.
Sensitiveness 53
CHAPTER XI.
Emphasis 56
CHAPTER XII.
Passion 59
CHAPTER XIII.
Frankness 61
CHAPTER XIV.
Speed 63
CHAPTER XV.
Motives 66
BOOK II.
I
Eije IButcfi antr ottjer Sdiools.
CHAPTER I.
Albert Durer 71
CHAPTER 11.
Rembrandt 73
CHAPTER III.
Ostade and Bega 97
CONTENTS. xxiii
CHAPTER IV.
PACK
Berghem, Potter, Dujardin loi
CHAPTER V.
Vandyke and Hollar 107
CHAPTER VI.
CANALETTI, RUYSDAEL, and others Ill
CHAPTER VII.
Zeeman 119
CHAPTER VIII.
Goya 123
CHAPTER IX.
Jongkind . . • . .128
CHAPTER X.
Van S'gravesande 133
CHAPTER XI.
Modern Germans and others 138
BOOK III.
CHAPTER I.
ft Xb¥IVal of Etching in France 147
CHAPTER II.
157
xxiv CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III.
PACK
Callot and Boissieu i6i
CHAPTER IV.
Meryon 167
CHAPTER V.
Lalanne 177
CHAPTER VI.
JACQUEMART 183
CHAPTER VII.
Charles Jacque 189
CHAPTER VIII.
Daubigny 195
CHAPTER IX.
Appian 202
CHAPTER X.
Chifflart 20
CHAPTER XI.
Lalauze, Veyrassat, Martial 212
CHAPTER XII.
Various French Etchers 220
CONTENTS, XXV
BOOK IV,
CHAPTER L
PACK
The Revival of Etching in England 239
CHAPTER 11.
Turner 261
CHAPTER IIL
Wilkie and Geddes 273
CHAPTER IV.
RUSKIN 278
CHAPTER V.
Whistler 288
CHAPTER VI.
Haden 294
CHAPTER VII.
Cruikshank and Doyle 316
CHAPTER VIII.
Samuel Palmer 325
CHAPTER IX.
MiLLAIS 339
CHAPTER X.
CoPEy H0RSLEY9 Hook 341
r
xxvi CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XI.
PACK
Creswick, Redgrave, Ridley 345
CHAPTER XII.
Tayler, Ansdell, Knight 35°
CHAPTER XIII.
Chattock and George 353
BOOK V.
Eije interpreters of fainting, antr Copsing in
jFacsimile.
CHAPTER I.
The Interpreters of Painting 363
CHAPTER 11.
On Copying Etchings in Facsimile 398
APPENDIX.
practical jptotes.
CHAPTER I.
The Plate 407
CHAPTER II.
The Needle ^09
CHAPTER III.
Grounds and Varnishes 411
CONTENTS, xxvii
CHAPTER IV.
PAGB
The Acid Bath 414
CHAPTER V.
The Laboratory and Printing-room 415
CHAPTER VI.
The Roller and its Uses 420
CHAPTER VII.
Biting 423
CHAPTER VIII.
Stopping-out 429
CHAPTER IX.
Auxill/oues 433
CHAPTER X.
The Author's Positive Process 435
CHAPTER XI.
The Chemistry of Etching 436
CHAPTER XII.
Dry-point 440
CHAPTER XIII.
Printing 441
CHAPTER XIV.
The Interpretation of Nature 445
CATALOGUE INDEX 447
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
COVER AND TITLE-PAGE.
I. Designs on the back of this volume, above and below the title.
These designs of Plovers and Teal are from an etching by M. Bracquemond,
called Vanmaux et Sarcdles (see page 225). They are as £uthful an interpretation
of Bracquemond's manner as the material would permit They are intended to
show the appearance of an etched plate before it is bitten, the black representing
the smoked black gromid in which the etching is drawn, and the gold the lines of
bare copper, which are afterwards to come black in the printing. All that is left
black on the plate is white in the printed proo£
The finer lines in this drawing are purposely run together into simple broad
lines, because they would not have printed distinctly in the gold.
2. Design in gold on black on the side of the volume.
This represents, as accurately as the materials would permit, the appearance
of part of Turner's plate called the Little DeviTs Bridge (see page 272), when he
had just drawn the lines on the plate. The black represents the black smoked
etching ground, and the gold the copper as it was laid bare by the etching point
The block with which this is stamped on the cover was reproduced photographi-
cally from an off-track (see page 444) from my copy of Turner's lines, which is
given at page 272. It is more nearly accurate than any other manner of reproduc-
tion would have permitted, but the lines are for the most part broader than
Turner's lines on the copper must have been, and they are all much less pure and
dear, as the reader will easily see by comparing them with those in my etching
after Turner. However, they have alwa3rs the true direction, and the design may
be of use in preparing the eye of a beginner for the appearance of a drawing on
metal in negative, which is all that it is intended for.
3. Woodcut on the Title-page,
This is a copy on wood, by Mr. Cooper, of one of Rembrandt's best portraits
of himsel£ It is, I think, the most perfect imitation of etching by wood engraving
that I ever saw. Mr. Cooper wisely selected a plate which could be reproduced
by accurately placed dots and lines, and which did not exhibit those qualities of
texture that cannot be imitated by wood-engraving.
The portrait here copied is that numbered 216 in M. Charles Blanc's Cata-
logue. It is called *' Rembrandt au bonnet plat"
XXX
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS,
ETCHINGS.
All the etchings in this volume, with the exception of plates IX. and XIL, are
copied by the author.
Plate IX. is an original sketch from nature by Lalanne, and Plate XIL is an
original sketch from nature by the author.
PLATE I.
The Corpulent Beggar, after Rembrandt
PLATE IL
Portrait of Old Mother, after Rembrandt
PLATE IIL
Peasants Drinking, after Ostade
OPPOSITK
PAGE
90
92
ICX>
PLATE IV.
Cottage on a Shore, after Weirotter .
PLATE V.
TREES, after Waterloo
PLATE VL
Boats near Shore, after Zeeman
PLATE VIL
Scene in Old Paris, after Callot
PLATE VIII.
Palace of Justice and Bridge, Paris, after M^ryon
PLATE IX.
Fribourg, Switzerland, by Lalanne (original)
PLATE X.
Rocks and Pines, after Turner . . . .
PLATE XI.
Part of the Agamemnon, after Haden
PLATE XII.
Poplars and Oak, by P. G. Hamerton (original)
114
116
122
164
170
182
272
308
444
ETCHING AND ETCHERS.
BOOK I.
POWERS AND QUALITIES OF THE ART.
i
■ I
; i
I
rt
4
:
I
CHAPTER I.
ETCHING COMPARED WITH OTHER ARTS.
L WITH PAINTING IN OIL.
O ETTING aside the obvious difference in favour of paint-
ing, that it can represent colour, we find another
difference, scarcely less obvious, in the manner of inter-
pretation. The brush is a better instrument than the point,
because less conventional, since it does not necessarily resort
to lines, and lines do not exist in nature. So far, painting
is the higher art ; but it is not quite so well adapted to the
expression of transient thought Oil -sketching may be
exceedingly rapid, but the medium does not under all
circumstances admit of memoranda so completely expla-
natory as those which may be obtained with the point. In
the most valuable oil -sketching, that in which the true
relations of masses of colour are accurately preserved, form
has to be sacrificed ; and yet form is usually more important
than colour in the expression of artistic ideas. The very
presence of colour entails, in hasty work, the abandonment
of form, because in coloured art bad colour is intolerable,
and good colour is not attainable at high speed, unless it is
made the chief aim of the artist When an etching and an
oil picture are both produced in the same space of time,
the etching is likely to contain a more delicate definition of
many interesting points of form than the picture can. An
ETCHING COMPARED
elaborate picture, the labour of weeks or months, may con-
tain more form than any good etching, because good etchings
are almost ^ always done quickly ; but the finished painting
loses in freshness what it gains in completion, and belongs
to a wholly different class of art The aim of a laboured
picture is power by accumulation ; the aim of an etching is
power by abstraction and concentration. It is certain that
some very valuable qualities in oil painting can only be
attained by frequent correction and repainting ; the work is
done over and over again, often scraped till the previous
work shows through, and then the broken tints so obtained,
and which cannot be obtained in any other manner, are
made available for the expression of natural variety and
infinity. It will be shown in the course of this volume that
some results of this kind are more or less attainable in
laboured etching, but they are not entirely in harmony with
the idea of etching as an independent art. If we remain
within the limits of true etching, and then compare it simply
with such oil painting as alone is competent to convey
rapid inspirations, we shall find that the worker in oil is
obliged to sacrifice much to colour which the etcher easily
preserves ; and farther, that the very heaviness of the
medium, when the painter sketches in thick colour, is an
obstacle to liberty of expression which the freely- gliding
point avoids. The modern habit of sketching in varnish is
in some respects more free, but the adhesiveness of the
varnish often interferes with perfect liberty, and has to be
continually corrected by additions of turpentine. In this
method, as in simple oil painting, the embarrassment of
colour of course remains.
^ The reader will please notice the reserve implied by this word almost. Some
good etchers have worked slowly, and gradually completed their etchings by suc-
cessive processes. Justice will be done to these artists in their place.
WITH OTHER ARTS.
2. WITH PAINTING IN WATER-COLOUR.
Water-colour approaches more nearly than oil to the
facility and freedom of etching, but even water-colour is
less direct True water-colour, in which oqaque pigments
are not resorted to, attains its end by a series, often a long
series, of washes. The paper is subjected to treatment of
very various kinds, according to the caprice of the indi-
vidual artist ; but most water-colourists agree on one point,
they do not leave their first wash undisturbed ; they either
sponge it, or rub it with a rag, or rub it with a brush, or
take out whole patches of it to paint afresh on the white
paper beneath, and these processes are often repeated with
subsequent washes, so that there is a continual effacing or
alteration of work done. Now although etching admits of
correction, it is only on condition of revamishing the plate,
and correction does not enter into the habitual processes,
but is resorted to in order to remedy mistakes. A tho-
roughly successful etching, an etching successful not only
in result but in its progress, does not involve anything of
the nature of a correction anywhere. All its touches
remain ; no subsequent work obliterates them ; shades may
be passed over them, but they remain visible still. It
follows that etching exacts more decision than water-colour,
and, consequently, more strongly tends to produce the habit
of decision in its practitioners.
3. WITH DRAWING IN SEPIA OR INDIAN INK,
Drawings in one colour, done with the brush, bear the
same relation to etching that water-colour does, with the
single difference of colour. A sepia drawing is likely to
have its relations of light and dark more accurately true
than an etching by the same artist, but is not so likely to
ETCHING COMPARED
rival it in vivacity of accent.^ When a sepia drawing, com-
plete as a study of light and dark, aims also at delicate in-
dications of form, it becomes too costly in point of time to
note impressions whilst they are perfectly vivid. The
difference between sepia and etching, if the same time is
allowed to both, is entirely in favour of sepia if accurate
noting of light and shade is the object, and as entirely in
favour of etching if the artist wishes to draw attention to
points of character. It is exceedingly difficult in etching,
and without great labour and correction almost impossible,
to note all delicate weights of tone according to the wish
and intention of the artist ; but in sepia or Indian ink this
is so easy that where there is failure it may at once be attri-
buted to the artist's weakness in chiaroscuro. The first aim
of a sepia drawing ought to be perfect light and shade,
because that is the especial perfection attainable in the
method ; but for an etcher to make complete light and
shade his first aim would be barbarous, because it could only
be attainable in his art by great labour, and at the cost of
qualities more purely mental which ought to be the glory of
his work.^
^ Unless the etcher has worked very laboriously for tone, and is a master of the
craft, in which case he may possibly get the relations of light and dark as in a
sepia drawing, but never easily.
' There is a new school of etching which may be said to have come into being
since the first edition of this work was published, and which aims at nothing less
than the complete translation of oil-pictures into light and shade. The best men
have succeeded in this quite sufficiently to justify their attempt ; but the desire for
perfect light and shade is dangerous to the more important quality of expressive
drawing, and even to light and shade itself^ for imless the true relations are attained,
the attempt to reach them ends in mere blackness or a general dulness of foul
greys, which is even worse. An etcher from pictures, who is in reality an engraver
using etching as a means of translation, will naturally give great effort to attain true
relations of tone ; but an original etcher ought not to make them his first object ;
expression by line ought to be his first object.
WITH OTHER ARTS.
4. WITH DRAWING IN CHALK AND LITHOGRAPHY.
Since chalk-drawings on paper and on stone have the
same qualities, they may be considered as one art Litho-
graphy is richer than etching in the fulness of a touch,
dest plm grasy its touch is softer and blends better. Some
pictures can be better interpreted by lithography than by
etching. For example, Troyon is admirably rendered by
good lithographers, such as Loutrel, Franqais, and Eugene
Le Roux, and their lithographs convey a better idea of his
manner than etching would. All that is said of etching as
an autographic art is equally true of lithography ; a litho-
graph by Harding is just as truly his own as a drawing done
by him directly on paper. I have often felt surprised that
fine lithographs should not be more yalued than they are ;
it is true that the world has been flooded with bad ones, but
the existence of bad performances in any art ought not to
produce the impression that the art is generally weak. No
one looks for great art in a lithograph ; yet lithography is
perfectly competent to express great ideas. But, though
quite as autographic as etching, and though an appearance of
richness is more easily attainable in it, lithography is so far
inferior to etching in precision and sharpness of minute
accent, that it is inconceivable how one of Rembrandt's keen
little visages could ever be fairly rendered by chalk on stone.
The points on which expression depends in the etching of a
face are so infinitely minute, that no blunt instrument can
render them, and the lithographer's chalk is always, when
compared with the etching needle, a blunt instrument. It
is also continually crumbling away under his hand, and the
very grain of the stone he works upon, though necessary to
detach and hold the particles of chalk on which his effect
depends, is an impediment to the clearness of lines. The
lithographer has one great advantage over the etcher, he can
ETCHING COMPARED
see what he is doing, and though drawings on stone always
look better on the stone itself than they do in the printed
proofs, the artist does not work in negative as etchers do,
but in black upon the pleasant warm tint of the stone, just
as if he were drawing in black chalk upon tinted paper.
5. WITH PEN-DRAWING AND INK LITHOGRAPHY.
In polite circles, where a knowledge of the fine arts has
not yet penetrated, it is customary to call pen-drawings
" etchings ; " and since the existence of the real art of etch-
ing is but little known, it will generally be found that when
a young lady is said to etch well it does not mean that she
bites copper-plates with acid, but simply that she draws
nicely with pen and ink. There are also persons more
advanced in the study of the fine arts, who, although aware
that etching and pen-drawing are distinct arts, believe never-
theless tliat their powers and capacities are identical. The
truth is, however, that there are several important points of
difference, all which, except one, are in favour of etching.
The pen is a very free instrument when compared with the
burin, but it is not so free as the etching-needle, and the
liberty of the artist is still further limited by the necessity
for avoiding blots, which easily occur in close shading.
Drawing with the pen may be divided into two distinct arts.
In its first, or simple form, pen-drawing consists of lines
variously disposed, but always drawn with ink of the same
strength; in its more complex form, pen-drawing reaches
greater delicacy by using ink of infinitely various degrees of
dilution, from the palest that can be visible, in a line to the
blackest that will flow from the pen. The first method can
only compete with the most primitive etching, because it can
only imitate etchings done in one biting ; but the second
can also, though at some distance, imitate the more complex
etchings produced by several bitings.
WITH OTHER ARTS.
It remains to be observed that there is a marked distinc-
tion between etching and pen-drawing, as practical arts, in
the effect of pressure with the point of the instrument If
you press with your pen you enlarge your line, so that
pressure becomes an important means of expression. In
etching, on the other hand, pressure ought always to be
absolutely equal, and the enlargement of the line can only
be effected by taking a blunter point Pressure, in etching,
ought to be equal, because where it is too heavy the point
ploughs the copper and causes over-biting, and where it is
too light the varnish is not perfectly removed, though it may
seem to be, and the acid either produces no line at all or a
broken series of dashes and dots. We are so accustomed,
in the fine arts, to consider pressure as a means of varying
expression, that inexperienced etchers find the greatest diffi-
culty in reaching the steady equality of it which is necessary
to the success of the subsequent biting ; and this difficulty
is likely to be felt the most by etchers accustomed to express
themselves in arts, such, for example, as violin-playing,
where every cresce^ido is an increase of pressure, and every
diminuendo a diminution of it
Pen-lithography belongs to the first of the two classes of
pen-drawing ; paleness cannot be obtained in it by dilution
of ink, but only by the thinness and paucity of the lines.
It follows that pen-lithography can never approach etching
in variety of depth, and can neither rival, on the one hand,
the delicacy of its fainter passages, nor, on the other, the
vigorous depths of its strongly-bitten blacks. If we add to
these inferiorities the comparative want of freedom caused
by the use of an instrument which may produce a blot if too
full,^ or a vacant scratch when it runs dry, and which re-
quires replenishing every minute (a continual interruption to
the rapid utterance of thought), we have grounds for a com-
* When the blot is intentional in pen-drawing, it is a great source of power,
and is constantly used by skilful artists.
8 ETCHING COMPARED
parison which is entirely favourable to etching. Pen-litho-
graphy has, however, the great advantages of showing the
result during the progress of the work, and avoiding the
dangers, whilst it misses the charms, of many bitings. It is
consequently far better suited for amateurs.
6. WITH DRAWING IN BLACK LEAD.
The black-lead pencil has some definite advantages over
the etching-needle. It may be cut very broad, and in this
state will rapidly produce pale tints of fine quality, not to
be rivalled in etching without much greater labour. It will
also yield various degrees of blackness to a variety of pres-
sure. As lead -pencils are made of different kinds, some
very hard and others soft and black, some with broad leads
for shading, and others to be cut to a fine point, very various
qualities are attainable in pencil-drawing. There may be an
infinite delicacy and precision with the point, an even breadth
of shade, and some considerable depth in the extreme darks.
It is, however, especially in these darks that pencil-drawing
comparatively fails, because it has an unpleasant tendency
to shine, and the blackest black produced with a lead-pencil
is always light in comparison with printer's ink. The degree
of freedom enjoyed by the designer in black-lead is greater
than the pen allows, but inferior to the freedom of the
etching-point It may be observed, however, that for artists
who have not reached a very high degree of decision, this
freedom of the etching-point is too excessive to be altogether
an advantage. The lead-pencil depresses the surface of the
paper where it passes, and so makes for itself a shallow
channel whose sides are deep enough to prevent involuntary
slips ; but the surface of polished copper is so very smooth,
and the thin coat of varnish resists so little, that the etcher
has need of great firmness and precision in the hand itself,
for he can never safely rest upon the point It follows that
WITH OTHER ARTS.
pencil-drawing is a far easier art than etching, and in com-
mon with the other arts we have been considering, it has the
g^reat advantage of being a positive art, etching (by the
process usually followed) being altogether negative. It is
scarcely necessary to explain these useful terms, borrowed
from photography ; but as a few readers may be un-
acquainted with them, it may be well to add that a positive
art is one in which darks are represented by darks, and
lights by lights ; whereas in a negative art, such as etching,
darks are represented (in the direct work of the artist) by
lights, and lights by darks. This adds greatly to the
difficulty of etching, especially in the case of beginners, who
find themselves greatly embarrassed by the impossibility (to
them) of translating their work into its corresponding posi-
tive, as the printing-press will translate it In sculpture, the
sculptor who makes a bas-relief works in positive, and the seal-
engraver and die-sinker in negative ; but the seal-engraver
has a great advantage over the etcher in being able to take
frequent proofs of his work during its progress, which the
etcher can only do after removing the varnish from his plate.
The finest pencil-drawings do not attempt depths of
shade, but content themselves with comparatively pale tones.
The worst pencil-drawings, those of school-boys who pursue
the fine arts, usually abound in passages where great pressure
and much repetition, and very black pencils indeed, have
ended in the production of such brilliant black-leading as
might delight the eyes of an artistic housemaid. The blacks
of etching are safer in quality, for, at least, they never shine,
and easily reach an intense depth ; but the pale tones of
pencil-drawing are safer than the pale tones of etching.
As to the value of the two methods, much depends on the
kind of subject, and much upon the temper of the master,
A naked figure, by G^rdme, is better in pencil, because its
modelling is truer and more delicate than any modelling
G^6me could express with the etching-needle ; but an old
lo ETCHING COMPARED
man's face, by Rembrandt, is rendered more incisively with
the point than it could be with any other instrument.
7. WITH THE GRAPHOTYPE.
Since the Graphotype is a recent invention, it may be
necessary, first, to give a brief description of the process.
Finely powdered chalk is spread thickly on a metal plate
and then subjected to hydraulic pressure till it becomes a
solid mass with a beautiful white surface, slightly shining,
but not inconveniently brilliant. On this surface the artist
draws in a glutinous ink, perfectly black, flowing from a
finely-pointed little brush ; the pen cannot be used, on
account of the friability of the chalk. The ink glues the
particles of chalk where it passes, and when the drawing is
complete the white spaces between the lines are easily
hollowed by rubbing them gently with a piece of velvet or a
light brush. The black lines remain in relief, like the lines
of a woodcut The plate is then dipped in a solution of
flint and so hardened, after which a stereotype cast, or an
electrotype copy, is taken from it, and this stereotype or
electrotype serves to print from as a woodcut.
The most obvious advantage of the graphotype is that it
is a positive process in every sense. Not only is it superior
to etching in showing the artist black for black and white
for white, instead of glittering copper for black, and lamp-
black for white, but it is superior both to etching and
lithography in the entire absence of reversing ; the objects
that will be to the right in the print are to the artists
right as he works. It is as easy as drawing upon paper
with a brush-point and ink of uniform thickness, in lines.
No brushwork in the painter's sense is possible, nor are
any more or less pale lines, but the lines may vary in
thickness.
The graphotype is as autographic as any process ever
WITH OTHER ARTS. 1 1
invented, and the artist who is only able to draw, and has
not devoted much time to the special study of etching,
would find the graphotype a more faithful interpreter of his
intentions, because inexperienced etchers never accomplish
what they propose to themselves, and are especially liable
to disappointment in relations of tone. But the graphotype
can never supersede etching, being altogether a coarser and
heavier process, and neither capable of the delicacy and
extreme tenuity of line which distinguish etching, nor of its
invaluable variety of dark.^
8. WITH WOOD ENGRAVING.
Wood engravers have never been more skilful than they
are now, and never more unfaithful to the true nature and
principles of their art No art has been so unfortunate as
wood engraving, in being condemned from the first to pro-
duce results precisely the contrary of the results which are
naturally indicated by the method. If you take a wooden
blook unengraved, and print from it as if it were a finished
woodcut, you will obtain a perfectly black patch the size of
your block. If you take a copper plate unengraved, and
print from it as if it were a finished etching, you will obtain
a white space, enclosed by four impressed but colourless
marks, produced by the edges of the plate, and called the
plate mark. If you engrave a line on both block and plate,
and then hand them again to their respective printers, your
new proofs will give you a white line on a black ground for
the woodcut, and a black line on a white ground for the
etching. The natural process of woodcutting is, therefore,
to leave the darks and mark the lights, showing always
the work of the tool as a definite white mark, every touch
^ The graphotype is one of the many processes that have been invented as
"substitutes for wood engraving," but it is not a perfect process, though it seems
to hold its ground to some extent conmiercially. It may do for coarse work, but
of little use for the purposes of fine art.
12 ETCHING COMPARED
of it. But as it happens that paper is white and light-
coloured, for the most part, and as people are accustomed
to see drawings done in dark upon white, because it is
easier to make a very black line on white paper than a
very white line upon black, it follows that black upon white
has come to be considered by the world in general a more
natural and rational, and in every way more orthodox,
method of proceeding than white upon black. So the
wood engravers have all along been laboriously cutting out
bits of white to make us feel as if they had engraved the
black lines, and every hasty scrawl of the draughtsman has had
to be carefully cut round by them. Hence, wood engraving
has not been a genuine art, except in a few instances, nor
have its natural powers been duly cultivated. It has occu-
pied the position of some man of great natural ability, who
has had the misfortune to be bred to a profession for which
his faculties were always iinsuited, who by dint of long
study and patience has taught himself to do what was
required of him, but who has left his true self uncultivated
and unexpressed. There are several instances of true wood
engraving in the illustrations of Gustave Dor6; but there
are many more examples of attempts to imitate other arts.
The most genuine wood engraving may be known at once by
the perfect frankness of its white lines, and the plain inten-
tion of its white spaces, as cut out lightSy not mere intervals
of white paper. It may be objected that art more naturally
proceeds by black lines than by white lines ; but this is one
of the common illusions of custom. We are more accus-
tomed to see artists work in black lines than in white ; but
if the question be referred to nature, it will be found that
natural darks are relieved against lights, and lights against
darks, in about equal proportion, so that the power of
drawing white lines is just about as useful as the power
of drawing black ones. The next time the reader sees a
common hedge he will have an opportunity for testing this
WITH OTHER ARTS. 13
doctrine, and will as often find light twigs against dark
places as the converse.^
An attempt to compare wood engraving with etching is
embarrassed by the various false directions of wood engraving
as practised by contemporary artists. One of its recent
developments is the imitation of etching itself; and here,
of course, the false art remains at an infinite distance from
the true one. No wood engraving can ever reach the variety
of tint obtained by variety of biting ; and although modem
woodcutters are, as mechanics, skilful to a degree which
would have astonished Albert Durer, no surface printing
can give lines of such fineness and delicacy as may be
reached by etched lines, or dry-point scratches, with the
ink in them. The best way to compare the wood engraver's
imitation of etching with etching itself is to put such wood-
cut copies of Rembrandt's etchings as those published in
the " Histoire des Peintres " side by side with the originals.
The woodcuts in that publication are as good as any modern
imitative work whatever, so that the comparison is a fair
one. The character of the original is cleverly suggested ;
but the degree of reproduction attained is about that attain-
able in a pen-drawing, with thick Indian ink, never diluted
for lighter passages.
* As instances of genuine wood engraving, by white lines and spaces, may be
mentioned the following subjects from Dore's ** Quixote :" — "J/aw, Seigneur,
ut-ce bonne rigle de ckevaierie que nous allions ainsi par ces montagnes comme des
infants perdusV — VoL i. ch. xxv. engraved by Pisan. " Tandis qu'on naviguait
ainsi, Zorai'de restait ^ mes c6t^s. " — Vol. i. ch. xlL engraved by Pisan. " Enfin
an bout de trois jours on trouva la capricieuse L^andra dans le fond d'une
caveme." — VoL i. ch. li. engraved by Pisan. **J'ai deji fait, Seigneur Duran-
dart, ce que vous m'avez command^ dans la fatale joumee de notre deroute." —
VoL iL ch. xxiiL engraved by Pisan. " Je suis Merlin, celui que les histoires disent
avoir eu le diable pour p^re." — Vol. ii ch. xxxv. without engraver's name. " L^
se termine le chant de Tamoureuse Altisidore." — Vol. ii. ch. xliv. engraved by
Pisan. In the last the reader may observe the frank cross-hatching of white lines
on the stones above the door. Some black lines are still preserved, however,
from habit, especially in the dresses of the ladies.
14 ETCHING COMPARED
Another kind of wood engraving is the imitation of burin-
work on copper or steel. By far the best instances of this
are the cuts after Durer's copper or steel plates in the work
just referred to, especially the "Melancholy," which is a
wonderful example of clear and minute line-cutting. To
compare work of this kind with etching is unnecessary,
because all the qualities of woodcut imitations of steel
engraving are possessed in higher perfection by steel en-
graving itself, which we shall shortly have to consider.
Next to woodcutting in avowed white lines, the kind of
work in which the engraver has most to do is the interpre-
tation of tints. In facsimile engraving, the engraver has
nothing to do beyond the removal of unstained wood, an
operation requiring no more intellect, though greater manual
skill, than the rubbing away of chalk in the graphotype.
But the accurate interpretation of tints requires great artistic
judgment, as well as great manual skill ; and the wood en-
graver who renders a washed drawing without missing any
essential relation of tone, and by means of lines invented by
himself, is exercising an art which, whether true or false in
its method, has claims of its own, and may be seriously
compared with etching. What first strikes us is a wide
difference in popularity, entirely in favour of wood engrav-
ing. Interpretative wood engraving (as opposed to fac-
simile wood engraving) is in the fullest and most extensive
sense popular. Many thousands of copies of woodcut illus-
trations are sold easily, when the same subjects, if they had
been etched on copper, would have found with difficulty two
or three hundred purchasers. This is due, in part, to the
greater cheapness of woodcuts, which may be cheaply
printed, and will yield immense editions without deteriora*
tion ; but it is also due, and in a still greater degree, to some
quality io wood engraving which charms the ordinary spec-
1 IS either absent from etching or neutralised
peculiarity offensive to the uneducated eye.
WITH OTHER ARTS. 15
It is probable that this quality is an appearance of softness.
First-rate modern woodcutting, aided by the artifice of in-
serting various thicknesses of paper, so as to obtain a variety
of pressure in the printing, attains a degree of softness in
itself highly agreeable, and always delightful to the ignorant.
Etching, on the contrary, has a natural tendency to look
meagre and " scratchy," a tendency overcome only by the
most skilful masters.^ If the reader will take the trouble to
compare Mr. Birket Foster's drawings on wood, as interpreted
by Mr. Edmund Evans, with the etchings of the same artist,
he will at once understand the popular feeling, though he
may not fully share it The engravings are richer and softer
than the etchings ; they have more amenity. It is with the
fine arts as with individual men : amenity is a more popular
quality than freedom or truth. Etching is like those
characters in real life, too seldom appreciated at their full
value, who have abundant energy, great freedom of manner,
and an insight too keen to be always agreeable, and whose
intense personality and originality make them almost in-
capable of concession or conformity. Wood engraving is
usually executed in quite a different spirit The engraver
does not work passionately, like the true etcher, but gives
patient and skilled labour to make his work pleasant to the
eye. His art is thus more in unison with the temper of
society, which likes a gentle manner and perfect training in
little things, and rather objects to intellect, if it disdains con-
ventional expression, and takes no pains to make itself agree-
able. The whole life of the wood engraver is devoted to
arts of interpretation, which the etcher disdains as mecha-
nism ; and it is to the perfection attained in these minor arts
that the popularity of modern wood engraving is due.^
^ But entirely overcome by them. There are etchings by Rajon and Ilcdouin,
for example, in which the quality of softness, wherever the artist desired it, has
been as fully attained as it could be even in a chalk or charcoal drawing.
* In the best wood engraving there is often a lively sparkle due to the intelligent
ETCHING COMPARED
9. WITH ENGRAVING IN MEZZOTINT.
Having prepared his plate by roughening it all over with
a heavy tool, so constructed as to present a great number of
little sharp teeth, each of which produces a small indentation
and raises a corresponding bur, the engraver in mezzotint
starts from a point exactly opposed to that of the aquafortist
His plate, before anything is represented upon it, yields an
impression which is entirely black, and a very rich soft black,
perfectly equal, and showing no line or mark of any kind.
The etcher's plate, on the contrary, yields a perfectly white
impression. The engraver in mezzotint, like the engraver on
wood, makes his plate lighter as he works, whilst the etcher
darkens his plate. There is also another difference, not less
important — the etcher works by lines, and the mezzotint
engraver by spaces. The consequence of these differences
of method is a difference of quality and spirit. Every art,
so long as it is healthy and rightly pursued, tends to express
chiefly those artistic ideas which it can express most easily.
Mezzotint is naturally rich and soft, with the corresponding
defect of vagueness and want of precision in detail, and be-
cause its blacks are so full and perfect, and so cheaply ob-
tained, it has a tendency to blackness. Etching tends to
thinness and hardness, but is capable of any conceivable
degree of firmness and precision in detail. It would be
absolutely impossible to engrave in pure mezzotint one of
Rembrandt's etched faces on the same scale, without missing
some of those sharp and delicate accents upon which the
power of the work mainly depends. On the other hand,
although pure etching, without the bur raised by the dry
wft; in iriucb the <ugr«»ei bu ndlised tonches of while, often vei; minute; Vou
seldom And UiIb qualily in clchm^ but it ii perfectly Attainable by Ihe ^cher who
is leclmiad psrpoMS. See the chapter in this volume
p oT Samuel I'tUiner.
WITH OTHER ARTS, 17
point,^ can never imitate the peculiar velvety softness of
mezzotint, it can fully rival its depth and richness of effect.
The two arts are to a considerable extent complementary of
each other. Pure etching, when not laborious in finish, has
a meagre look which mezzotint corrects, and mezzotint has
a want of energy and precision which a few etched lines may
often effectually supply. Mezzotint and etching are there-
fore often seen in combination, as in the " Liber Studiorum "
of Turner. Engravers' etching, in combination with mez-
zotint, is now popular enough, when helped by machine-
ruling, for the production of large prints to hang in drawing-
rooms. The mezzotint gives a look of softness, and the
machine-ruling an appearance of neatness, which make the
etching pass current with the print-buying section of the
public.
10. WITH LINE-ENGRAVING.
The mechanical difficulties of line-engraving are so great
that they have naturally absorbed much of the attention of
line-engravers — so much that the conquest of mechanical
difficulty has been too often regarded by them as the chief
aim of their lives, to the neglect of artistic qualities. The
degradation of line-engraving was complete when a tradition
had at length regulated every method of interpretation, and,
leaving nothing to the instinct and feeling of the workman,
prescribed for him where to put thick lines and thin lines,
and lozenges with dots in the middle. Having attained
skill in a difficult handicraft, the engravers became proud of
their accomplishments, and, forgetting that the only rational
use of them could be the interpretation of artistic ideas,
took to displaying them for themselves, without reference to
either nature or art. To cut lines regularly and put dots
neatly became an aim in itself The instrument chiefly
used by line-engravers, the burin, is answerable for much of
^ See the chapter on Dry Point
C
1 8 ETCHING COMPARED
this lamentable aberration. No tool used in the fine arts
has less freedom. It is difficult to handle, requires the
application of an appreciable amount of force, and is always
slow, even in the most skilful hands. The lines which it
cuts are singularly pure and sharp, and it can vary both
their thickness and their depth, obediently to the pressure
of the fingers and the lower part of the palm. It describes
beautiful curves quite naturally, like a skate that bites in
ice, but it has great difficulty in following violent and minute
irregularities. Its operation on the mind of the artist who
uses it is always to make him patient and very attentive to
mechanical matters, for which he has to be perfectly cool,
and this coolness easily chills into coldness. If modern line-
engravers were in the habit of engraving their own inven-
tions, as Durer did, the chilling influence of the instrument
would have been less visible in their work, because a man
who expresses his own thought has always more heat and
vivacity than a man who only interprets the thought of
another. The misfortune of line-engraving has been that
mechanical dexterity has been made too absorbing a pur-
suit, and that it has been devoted too exclusively to copyism.
No art could long resist these adverse influences. Even
etching itself, free and original as it is, would lose much of
its freedom and all its originality, if the public required
from it mechanical perfection, and set it to the dull business
of copying finished pictures.
The decline of line-engraving, in the commercial sense,
has been due to its great costliness rather than to any
artistic deficiency, and as this costliness in money is merely
an expression for costliness in time, line-engraving cannot
flourish as etching may, in spite of public neglect, because
the practitioners of it cannot afford to pursue it without
reference to pecuniary results. Such an art as line-engrav-
ing cannot exist without liberal support, but the failure of
such support is not to be taken as any proof of inferiority
WITH OTHER ARTS. 19
in the art Line-engraving had great powers peculiar to
itself. It was especially adapted for the rendering of the
naked figure, whose elaborate curves and complicated model-
ling were well expressed by the burins of the great engravers.
As the interest in the naked figure has declined, and given
place to an interest in landscape and costume pictures, it is
natural that less value should be attached to a kind of
engraving which greatly surpassed other kinds of engraving
in the naked figure only, and which would be thrown away
upon the interpretation of popular modern art. Few naked
figures in pure etching have yet reached the perfect model-
ling of the great line-engravers, but on all other points the
artistic advantages rest with the etchers, however great may
be the mechanical charms of clean-looking burin work.
The wonderful landscape-engravers of the earlier part of
this century, Goodall, Wallis, Miller, and others, to whom
must be added Mr. J. C. Armytage, though not strictly line-
engravers, for they admitted etching and dry point work
(the bur being removed), have reached qualities which for
painter-etchers may be considered hopeless. Their marvel-
lous renderings of weights of colour in plates from Turner's
most delicate drawings, and especially their exquisite skies,
are quite beyond rivalry in such etching as painters may
safely attempt. All etched skies that I have seen, not
excepting the best of Haden and Rembrandt, and even
Claude, are either rude or simple in comparison with such
skies as the best in Rogers' Poems, and plates 63, 66, and
67 in the fifth volume of " Modern Painters." In Mr. Army-
tage's skies, machine-ruling has been admitted as a ground
tint, and the lights scraped and burnished out; in the
illustrations to Rogers the skies are for the most part pure
dry point A skilful etcher, such as Haden or M^ryon
may give very intelligible hints of the mental emotion felt
by him in the presence of some splendid natural sky, but he
cannot render the sky itself, the evanescent delicacy of the
so ETCHING COMPARED
cloud-forms, their melting imperceptible gradations. But
the engravers have truly made plates of copper yield images
as closely resembling skies as the absence of colour and
feebleness of art's light may admit of; they have done
more than suggest, they have represented.
A brief recapitulation of the foregoing pages may be
useful before we proceed farther.
Etching is superior to oil-sketching in form, and to oil-
painting in freshness. It is inferior to both in truth of
tone, unless at the cost of immense labour, aided by un-
common skill.
It is superior to water-colour in decision and directness,
because its earliest work remains, being never obliterated
by subsequent washes and removals.
It is inferior to sepia-drawing in accurate rendering of
weights of light and dark, but superior to it in indications
of form.
It is superior to lithography in precision of minute form
and sharpness of accent, but inferior to it in richness and
fulness of touch.
It is superior to pen-drawing in freedom, variety, and
power, but inferior to it in not being sensitive to pressure.
It is superior to the lead-pencil in depth and power, but
inferior to it in equality of pale gradations.
It is superior to the graphotype in variety of depth and
in delicacy of line, but inferior so far as executive facility is
concerned in being entirely a negative art, whilst the grapho-
type is entirely positive. Etching is, however, superior to
the graphotype in freedom.
Etching is superior to wood engraving in freedom and
depth, but inferior to it in the kind of amenity which is
popular.
It is inferior to mezzotint in softness, but excels it in
firmness and precision.
It is far superior to line-engraving in freedom, but, unless
WITH OTHER ARTS. 21
in exceptional instances, inferior to it in the modelling of
flesh. Etching is also very far inferior to the best modern
point-engraving in the representation of skies.
The strong points of etching in comparison with other
arts are its great freedom, precision, and power. Its weak
points may be reduced to a single head. The accurate
subdivision of delicate tones, or, in two words, perfect
tonality, is very difficult in etching ; so that perfect model-
ling is very rare in the art, and the true representation of
skies, which depends on the most delicate discrimination of
these values, still rarer.
CHAPTER 11.
DIFFICULTIES AND FACILITIES OF ETCHING.
TN an article on Mr. Haden's etchings in the "Fine Arts
Quarterly Review," Mr. Palgrave gives some encourage-
ment to the general opinion that etching is one of the
easiest of the arts. "Mr. Haden has wisely chosen that
branch of art which lays by far the smallest stress on a
long course of manual practice. Engraving in its severest
forms must probably be placed below oil-painting or sculp-
ture in its manual demands. But the highest skill in
etching might be reached sooner than the skill to lay one
square'inch of even lines with the graver."
Mr. Palgrave refers to the difficulty of manual execution
only, and there is much truth in what he says, but not
the whole truth. In speaking of an art like etching, it is
exceedingly difficult to detach manual from intellectual
qualities. In line-engraving this is easier, because in line-
engraving manual dexterities have been made a distinct
aim, and you know when a man can make lozenges of equal
dimensions, and put his dots exactly in the middle of them.
But the peculiarity of etching, and its great nobility as a
fine art, consist in its disdain of all mechanical or purely
manual dexterities whatever. The quality of an etched line
depends on its meaning, and on that alone. Skill in etching
is always complicated with considerations of feeling and
knowledge ; if you eliminate these anybody may etch, be-
cause anybody can make lines on a varnished plate as clear
and free as Haden's.
DIFFICULTIES AND FACILITIES. 23
When Mr. Palgrave says that " the highest skill in etching
might be reached sooner than the skill to lay one square
inch of even lines with the graver," he does not tell us by
what sort of person this "highest skill " in etching might be
so easily reached. This is unfortunate, because the reader
may allowably infer that average humanity is understood.
The "highest skill in etching" cannot be reached at all
by the average aspirant. Thousands have attempted etch-
ing, and these include painters of considerable artistic culture
and experience. In this multitude you cannot find thirty
first-rate etchers : there are not twenty, there may be ten.
If there is any human pursuit wholly inaccessible to men of
ordinary powers, it is etching. In this respect there is
nothing comparable to it except poetry. Patient industry
and some imitative faculty may produce a passable engrav-
ing ; learning and long training an academic picture ; but
nobody can be taught to make fine etchings or fine poems.
Some pursuits require long labour, but reward all students
of fair ability who are willing to give the labour ; amongst
these are the common trades and professions. Other pur-
suits reward a few aspirants richly and speedily, but to men
of ordinary organisation give no return for a whole life of
toil The first may be difficult, but are yet possible to all
sane men at the price of ten or fifteen years* labour ; the
second may be what is called " easy," and yet to nineteen
men out of twenty absolutely and eternally unattainable.
The highest skill in poetry might be reached sooner than
a comprehensive acquaintance with historical literature.
Yes, if you presuppose a Tennyson.
The greatest technical difficulty of etching — not precisely
a " manual " difficulty, for it depends in great measure upon
the use of the mordant — is the difficulty of arriving at the
relative weights of dark which the artist desires.
In this respect etching is far more difficult than any form
24 DIFFICULTIES AND
of art where results are immediately visible. An artist
may be able to get the tones he wants in sepia, or with the
pen, and yet be altogether uncertain with the etching-
needle.
Etching is here more difficult than line-engraving, because
the engraver sees his plate, and has frequent proofs taken
during its progress, for his guidance.
A negative process is always so far more difficult than a
positive process. Drawing on wood, lithography, and the
graphotype, are technically easier than negative etching.
When the brush can be used for shading, instead of lines,
there is, so far, greater facility. Setting aside the difficulty
of colour, painting is easier than etching.
In an introductory letter by M. Charles Blanc, prefixed
to Lalanne's treatise on etching, occurs the following
passage : —
" Ah ! si les dilettantes qui s'ennuient, si les artistes qui
aiment k fixer une impression fugitive, si les riches qui sont
blasts sur les plaisirs de la photographie savaient combien
est piquant Tint^r^t de Teau-forte, votre petit ouvrage aurait
un succ^s fou. II n'est pas jusqu'aux femmes ^l^antes et
lettr^es qui, fatigu6es de leur d^sceuvrement et de leurs
chiffons ne puissent trouver un ddassement plein d'attraits
dans Tart de dessiner sur le vemis et d'y faire mordre avec
esprit leurs fantaisies d'un jour."
It is very possible that if ladies in general were to take
up etching as they took up potichomanie a few years ago,
the sale of manuals on etching might become very consider-
able, but the cause of true art would gain nothing by the
spread of a delusive fashion of that kind. In the whole
range of the arts it is not possible to suggest one so unsuitable
for ordinary amateurs. Very much of the merit of an etch-
ing depends upon abstraction, and abstraction requires even
greater knowledge than elaboration. Etching must be done
FA CILITIES OF ETCHING. 2 5
rapidly and decisively, whereas when the untrained draughts-
man goes fast he always goes wrong, and when he is rigidly
decisive it is rigidity in error. A process to suit amateurs
should require as little abstraction as possible, and allow of
as much hesitation and correction ; above all, the effects of
work done should be clearly and immediately visible. The
most suitable art for amateurs is oil painting without the
embarrassment of colour. A tube of flake white and a tube
of Vandyke brown, a prepared milled-board, a selection of
hog brushes, and a little linseed oil, are the easiest materials
for an amateur to manage ; with these he can see what he
is doing, and may correct and efface as much as ever he
pleases.^ But a copper plate covered with black vamish, in
which every line shows itself in glittering metal, an arrange-
ment of shading made wholly with a view to a future biting,
a needle that slips about on the smooth copper every time
the hand trembles or hesitates — these are not favourable
conditions.
Having quoted two writers with whom, however greatly
we may respect their general ability, we find it impossible to
concur on this particular question of the supposed facility of
etching, it is agreeable to change the attitude of opposition
for that of cordial approval, and conclude the chapter with a
quotation which has our entire adherence.
In the "Fine Arts Quarterly" for June 1866, a writer who
preferred to remain anonymous, but who gave evidence of
unusual knowledge of his subject, as well as unusual enthusi-
asm for it, naturally found himself obliged to notice a delusion
which, however unworthy of serious attention, too generally
detracts from the estimation of etching to be passed over in
silence : —
* The new independent art of charcoal drawing as practised by the clever French-
men who invented it, or rather established it upon a basis of its own, is also ex-
ceedingly well adapted for amateur study ; and, if properly pursued, at the same
time very instructive and rapidly rewarding.
26 DIFFICULTIES AND FACILITIES.
** Of all modern misapprehensions connected with etching
—once accounted an art in which only a master could excel
— is that which supposes it to be particularly suited to the
half-educated artist The experience which has arisen out
of close observation and practice, and which enabled the old
etcher to express himself promptly and by simple means, is
in these days, it would seem, a proof that his treatment is
loose, and that he deals only in indications. The fact that
he has learned to select essentials and reject non-essentials,
and especially if he is able to do this before nature, that he
is merely sketching ; in short, the very qualities which even
a great artist is the last to arrive at — simplicity and breadth
— are, for some unaccountable reason, quoted to his preju-
dice if he happens to be able to observe them on copper.
For ourselves, we are well persuaded that etching, of all the
arts, is the one least fitted to the amateur ; supposing, of
course, the amateur to be the person he is generally described
to be. But there are amateurs of different degree." ^
^ The central difficulty, of a technical kind, in etching, and at the same time a
difficulty peculiar to this art, is the biting. By great delicacy of observation and
keenness of judgment in guessing how something is going on which you can never
quite clearly see, you may finally overcome this difficulty enough for practical pur-
poses ; that is to say, you may bite accurately enough for the plate to be brought
right ultimately by re-biting and partial rubbing-out with charcoal, but there will
ever remain a degree of uncertainty about biting, which is a very great difficulty
indeed. The reader will find much more on this subject towards the end of the
volume.
CHAPTER III.
THE POPULAR ESTIMATE OF ETCHING.
" I "HE existence of the art of etching is not yet generally
known. The word is generally known, but not the
meaning of it. As we have already observed, the word
•* etching," in non-artistic circles, is used to express drawing
in pen and ink.
A curious sign of the degree of art-culture supposed to be
generally attained by our educated public is that the writer
in the "Times" newspaper, when reviewing Haden's etchings,
found it necessary to preface his observations with a brief
account of the process by which they were produced.
Another, and perhaps still more significant fact is that, when
a recent publication of the Etching Club was issued, the
subscribers were informed that " these etchings were drawn
on copper by the artists themselves, and are not touched by
any engraver."
When a person has become clearly aware of the existence
of etching as an art distinct from pen-drawing, and not in-
tended to be an imitation of it ; when he knows that an
etched line is bitten by acid in copper or steel, and that the
rest of the plate is covered with varnish, the line having been
laid bare by the passage of a needle which has removed the
varnish along its course, then he has reached the first stage
in the knowledge of the art But he may still be liable to a
wrong estimate of etching, though he understands, in a rudi-
mentary way, its processes. He may believe it to be an un-
finished or inferior kind of engraving. An old printer, who
28 '' THE POPULAR ESTIMATE
occasionally printed painters* etchings, but was more com-
monly employed upon engravings, divided the etchings of
engravers and those of painters into two categories, as being
" finished" and " unfinished." The plates of Rembrandt were
not, in his view, completed works, but attempts at engraving,
which had stopped far short of completion, because the artist
was unable to carry them farther.
There exists also an idea that etching is an " imperfect
art" It is not more imperfect than line-engraving, though
its limitations are different Every art has its limitations.
No sculptor could ever carve a tree in marble, and yet we
do not speak of sculpture as an "imperfect art" The
powers and limitations of etching are fairly examined else-
where in this volume, and the writer's conclusion is by no
means unfavourable. Indeed, it is easy to show that the art
is unusually versatile.
A notion which could grow up nowhere but in England,
the natural home of theories about the dignity of occupa-
tions, is, that etching is beneath the attention of great
painters. The writer actually met with a printseller who
considered it beneath Landseer's dignity, as a knight and
Academician, to condescend to etch ! No serious refutation
can be given to objections of this kind.
These signs of apathy are briefly noticed here to mark
the stage we are just leaving. The reception of Mr. Haden's
etchings, and especially the intelligent and abundant criticism
which hailed them in the periodical press, was the dawn of a
greater enlightenment. Indifference to etching is wholly in-
compatible with high art-culture ; and if we really advance,
as we suppose ourselves to do, the true rank and importance
of the greatest of the linear arts cannot long remain hidden
from us.
Much of the enjoyment which we derive from art con-
sists in recognition of the truths which the artist intended to
express. But people recognise only what they already
OF ETCHING. 29
know ; therefore this pleasure is very slight at first, and in-
creases with our acquired knowledge. And there are certain
forms of art so strangely abstracted and abbreviated, that
very great knowledge is required in the spectator to read
them at all, just as it is necessary to understand a language
thoroughly if we would read letters in it in a hurried hand-
writing, full of marks and abbreviations peculiar to the
individual writer. To the informed judge, this kind of
artistic expression is, from its perfect frankness, peculiarly
interesting ; to the ordinary spectator it is uninteresting,
because illegible.
The art of etching has no mechanical attractiveness. If
an etching has no meaning it can interest nobody ; if its
significant lines are accompanied by many insignificant ones,
their value is neutralised. But if all the lines are significant
and the spectator unable to read their meaning, they must
seem to him quite as worthless as those of a bad etching
seem to a thorough critic.
Much of the popularity of engravings is due to the neat-
ness of the mechanical performance, which all recognise.
Machine-ruling is agreeable because it is so neat and regular;
mezzotint is pleasant because it is rich and soft ; some oil-
painting looks marvellously smooth. Almost every art,
except etching, has some external charm of this kind, which,
independently of mental expression, serves to secure the
approbation of the vulgar. It is because etching has no
attraction of this kind that it is not, nor can be, popular.
Since, however, etching relies on qualities of sterling
value, it can never cease to be highly appreciated by a
limited public of its own ; and in countries where general
art-culture is on the increase, this little public must always
be adding to its strength, and better able to make its
opinion listened to.
This little public, loving the art on high grounds, is
naturally fastidious. The buyers of etchings are more diffi-
30 THE POPULAR ESTIMATE OF ETCHING,
cult to please than the buyers of pictures. The extensive
sale of bad etchings would do no good to the art, and, if
etching were popular, it is likely that many etchers would
work down to a low popular standard, as so many painters
are in these days compelled to do or starve.
It is a matter less for regret than congratulation that an
art should exist safe from the baneful influences of vulgar
patronage. This is the good side of unpopularity, and it is
enough to reconcile all who truly love what is noble and
genuine in etching to the general neglect of it/
* Since this was written etching has become more popular, for it is now very com-
monly employed in the illustration of works upon art, artistic periodicals such as the
"Gazette des Beaux- Arts," the "PortfoUo," the ** Beitschrift fiir Bildende Kunst,"
and especially to illustrate catalogues of picture collections. Much technical skill
has been developed by this kind of practice, but it may be doubted whether it is
likely to make the public understand great spontaneous work better than it did
before. On the contrary, the more we are accustomed to high finish of this
pictorial kind, the less are we likely to tolerate what may seem to us a ruder
expression. Besides, the expression of original thought in etching, which is the
essence of the art, is as little encouraged, with one or two exceptions, as ever it
was. Etching is now extensively used as one of the forms of engraving, for the
interpretation of pictures not painted by the etcher, but it is almost impossible for
an etcher to live by original work, however excellent
CHAPTER IV.
THE INFLUENCE OF CONNOISSEURSHIP.
THHE greatest evil in the present relation of etching to
the public is, that in the little world that really cares
for it there should exist a too considerable proportion of
persons who are rather connoisseurs than amateurs. The
distinction between the two is worth insisting upon, because
true amateurs can do nothing but good to any art, whilst
connoisseurs, though of use in their way, and even necessary
in small numbers, mix their usefulness with much that is
positively harmful.
A genuine amateur is a person who values art because it
is good as art, and not because it is dear and rare. A
genuine amateur looks for artistic merits alone, and is so
entirely free from the passion of curiosity-hunting, that he
guards himself against the curiosity-madness as a man with
a great moral ideal guards himself against dipsomania.
The love of curiosity-collecting seems to him a weakness,
having some possible utility in the preservation of certain
objects in a half-civilised century like this, and so to be
tolerated till we finally emerge from the condition of
savagery ; but he sees clearly that it is not a love of art
Somebody with the curiosity-mania happens to take up
button-collecting, or cork-collecting, or autograph-collecting,
or by accident he may be turned to the collecting of etch-
ings, which, on account of rare states, offers as much to
interest him as anything else ; but the true amateur knows
the difference between this fancy and the love of art for its
32 THE INFLUENCE OF
own sake. One such amateur said, " I earnestly wish that
all works of art, good, bad, and indifferent, were just worth
as much as a gallon of atmospheric air, and no more ; we
should find out then who loved art and who didn't" A
man who could say that, and, having a collection of his
own, wish it heartily, had the spirit of the noblest amateur-
ship. That spirit desires what is good, but takes no pride
in the exclusive possession of it, and only wishes that others
might have the good things also, and the ability to enjoy
them. If I have a rare etching by Rembrandt, and am
happy and proud that other people want it, and envy me
because they cannot get it, I lie in the slough and mire of a
low egotism, and if I glorify myself as a lover of art on
these grounds I deserve no good report A fair test of true
amateurship is the way people take the recent discovery of
steeling. In former times an etching on copper yielded a
few hundred impressions, and a dry-point about one-tenth
of the number, before the plate was worn into worthlessness.
The finest impressions were the earliest, and when the plate
became old it yielded impressions so wretched, that copies
of the finest Rembrandts, in the last stage of their existence,
are now not worth in the market more than a thousandth
part of the value of the earlier proofs, whilst the difference
in artistic estimation would be much wider, being infinite.
But in these latter days an ingenious Frenchman has called
in electricity to remedy this evil. He covers a copper plate,
after it is engraved, with a coating of steel so infinitesimally
deep, that it does not fill up the lightest scratch of the dry-
point During the printing it is this coating of steel, and
not the copper, which has to bear the friction ; and when
the steel is worn through in any place it is easily removed
by a solvent which does not hurt the copper, after which the
plate may be re-steeled, and this may be repeated over and
over again, so that immense editions of etchings may in
these days be printed, without friction on the copper, only
CONNOISSEURSHIP. 33
on its thin steel coat It follows, of course, that unless
especial care is taken not to benefit by this discovery, the
days of rare fine proofs in work done after this time are
over. Everybody will be able to get good proofs of the
work of etchers, just as everybody is able to get a correct
edition of Scott or Byron. Now this discovery is hateful to
lovers of etchings as curiosities, and altogether acceptable
and delightful to true amateurs of art A true amateur
hates an impression from a worn plate, not because it is
common, but because it is bad as art : the relations of tone
having all gone wrong, and the most delicate lines being
lost altogether ; but the curiosity-hunter hates worn impres-
sions chiefly because they are common, and may be had of
the low printsellers on the Quai des Augustins, at ten sous
a-piece. The true amateur is glad of a discovery which
will make good etchings cheap by mere multiplicity of good
impressions, so that nobody will be tempted to exhaust a
plate. Would it be a bad thing if there were a million
perfect copies of Rembrandt's finest works ? Are there not
a million copies of Hamlet, and do we value Shakspeare
the less for his boundless publicity and illimitable possibility
of reproduction ?
Amateurship, in the higher sense, means the state in
which the love of art is chief, and everything else sub-
ordinate. In connoisseurship, knowledge is chief, and the
pride of knowledge, love being subordinate or non-existent
The glory of connoisseurship is to have ascertained and to
possess in perfect readiness many facts relating to work
done by famous men ; and these facts have very often no
connection whatever with artistic quality or natural truth.
It is a great thing for a connoisseur, for instance, to know
whether a plate is rare or common, a matter which, artisti-
cally, is of absolute indifference. Another great point in
connoisseurship is to be aware of the indications by which
different states are determined ; for instance, if in the first
D
34 THE INFLUENCE OF
state of a certain plate by Rembrandt the end hair in a
dog's tail has a bur, and if in the second state this bur has
been removed with the scraper, a professed connoisseur
could scarcely avow his ignorance of the fact ; whilst from
the artistic point of view ignorance of such details is per-
fectly avowable, and is of no importance unless they
seriously affect the artistic quality of the work. No
amateur need be ashamed of not having the peculiar kind
of knowledge which belongs to connoisseurs. When Pro-
vidence ordained that there should be connoisseurs, it was
with a view to the preservation of thousands of minute
facts which the artistic class would have despised too much
to treasure them for the benefit of mankind. As the mania
for collecting curious things has rendered the general service
of preserving much that is valuable as an illustration of the
past, so the instinct which leads men to collect odd facts
makes these men of use as living books of reference.
The good which connoisseurs do, is to hand down from
generation to generation a mass of interesting traditions or
discoveries about what has been done in art ; the evil which
they do is to produce a too general impression that this kind
of knowledge is the knowledge of art itself. It cannot be
too clearly stated or understood that a man may have
immense artistic and critical acquaintance with some branch
of the fine arts and yet not be a connoisseur at all ; or he
may be an accomplished connoisseur in the usual accepta-
tion of the word, and yet have very little artistic or critical
acquirement You find connoisseurs, who really are con-
noisseurs— ^that is to say, they can tell you who did a thing
and when, and give a shrewd guess as to the price it would
be likely to fetch in the market — ^and yet these men can
neither draw themselves, nor tell good drawing from bad
when they see it They recognise works of art as we re-
cognise men's faces, without artistic study. They can tell
the touch of an artist as we know the handwriting on the
CONNOISSE URSHIP. 3 5
back of a letter, without waiting to see the signature.
People hear them talk about rare impressions, and curious
states of the plate, till they are finally persuaded that the
study of art means this, and nothing better than this.
Connoisseurs when they are rich are naturally collectors,
and even when a collector in his heart holds such knowledge
as theirs in slight esteem, compared with the higher know-
ledge of artists and true critics, he is, nevertheless, compelled
to become a connoisseur in self-defence. It is not safe to
buy old etchings without being guided in some measure
by connoisseurship, either in your own person, or in the
person of some quite faithful friend. Books written by
connoisseurs are very useful, as they save one the trouble of
remembering the facts they are always ready to communi-
cate.
The difference between connoisseurs and amateurs in
etching, accurately corresponds to that between bibliographers
and readers in literature. You may be great in the know-
ledge of the editions of books, or great in the knowledge of
the mental wealth of books. If an edition is correct and
legible, the wants of the student are satisfied ; but the book
collector prefers a faulty edition if it is rarer, and buys books
less because they are good literature than as rare and valu-
able curiosities. How seldom are great collectors great
readers ! how still more seldom are they select and critical
readers ! And so it is in the fine arts ; connoisseurship
seems little favourable to the study of the minds of great
artists. The habit of keenly looking for small facts, and
constantly making small observations, diverts the attention
from the mighty powers of the immortals.
CHAPTER V.
CRITICISM AND PRACTICAL WORK.
"^^ EITHER amateurship nor connoisseurship is neces-
sarily critical. An amateur is merely a person who
loves art, and a connoisseur is a person who knows one thing
from another, which need not be on grounds of artistic merit.
A critic requires other qualifications.
It has often been asserted that the labours of artist and
theorist are incompatible, and that it is useless to attempt
both. By an irresistible instinct, however, some men are
driven to do both, and cannot endure to give up either,
practice seeming to them to be enlightened and guided by
theory, and theory to be most solidly grounded on practice.
The two seem like the lame man and the blind man, theory
being lame and practice blind ; and the lame man in the
table mounted upon the blind man's back, and they both got
on well enough.
But It is true that artists, as they are generally constituted
and educated, cannot be just critics, though their criticism
is usually interesting if the necessary allowance is made, in
each case, for the artist's point of view. The world of art
is divided into many small states or cliques, each as violently
prejudiced against the others as the common people in every
nation are against foreigners. International criticism is
valuable only if you never forget the nationality of the critic.
Englishmen accuse the French of being extravagant and
parsimonious in consecutive sentences, which only means
that the French spend liberally where the English spend
CRITICISM AND PRACTICAL WORK. 37
little, and that by a necessary compensation the French are
careful where the English are liberal. So if we consider
artistic cliques as little nations, we shall find all pure artists
national, and criticising other cliques in that national way.
But the critic, in reference to cliques, must be cosmo-
politan.
Now to be cosmopolitan in the true sense does not mean
to be ignorant about what goes on in different nations. A
suC^allow is not cosmopolitan because he flies over many
lands ; and yet the present tendency of thought about
criticism is, that to avoid cliques and their narrowness it
must be confided to men who are just as much outside of
the art world as swallows are of the human world.
No person outside of practical art can criticise, and also
no practical person living in a narrow clique can criticise
justly. The true critic is a person who, having lived within
the cliques and learned their languages, can get outside of
them at any time by an effort of the will, and see them all
at about the same distance from himself He knows them
from within, and he knows them from without, both kinds of
knowledge being absolutely indispensable to justice.
It is one of the current commonplaces that the age we
live in is great in criticism but not in art, and the present
Lord Lytton made a capital fable about a certain hen and a
weasel, the hen being the artist laying eggs, but in such dread
of the weasel (the critic), that at last she grew confused in
mind, and dreamed that she was the weasel himself, the con-
sequences being as follows : —
This double identity made up of two —
Her waking and sleeping self— at last,
The hen*s life into confusion threw
And over it daily and nightly cast
The spell of a two-fold trouble. By day
She lived in such dread of her midnight dream
That at length not an egg was she able to lay,
Yet this daily sterility did not redeem
38 CRITICISM AND PRACTICAL WORK.
From its nightiy plague her spirit tormented
When she by the dream's transforming power
Changed into a weasel, was discontented
At finding no more any eggs to devour.
• ••••••
So are we : who both author and critic in one
Miss the comfort accorded to either alone.
By alternate creative and critical powers
Is our suffering identity sundered and torn.
And the tooth of the critic that's in us devours
Half the author's conceptions before they are bom.
This is admirably well put, and there are cases of which
it is quite true, but since it is our inevitable fate, as tnodems,
to become critical in one way or other, our only chance of
safety lies in being critical with thoroughness of knowledge.
There may have been unconscious artists in former times ; I
doubt if there are any now ; the best of them I know com-
bine, as George Eliot does, the artist and critic in one per-
son, and are clearly conscious of what they are doing. It
may be quite true that the critic in them devours half the
author's conceptions before they are bom, but as there is not
time in an artist's life to realise more than about one-tenth
of his conceptions, the only consequence is a more careful
selection of the few that can be realised, and, notwithstand-
ing their critical spirit, artists and authors are as prolific as
ever, laying as many eggs as their predecessors, and hatch-
ing them too.
As artists on the one hand try to enlighten themselves by
criticism, so the wisest and best of critics endeavour to get
light through practical work. Labour of that kind is good
because it shows us the technical limitations, and if the
critical reader comes to understand etching thoroughly he
may compel himself to a complete analysis by copying
works by different great masters, not on paper, but on
copper, and by forcing the copper to give the same results
as the print before him. Such experiments open our eyes
CRITICISM AND PRACTICAL WORK. 39
more than any amount of time spent in turning over prints
in a portfolio. They are study in the true sense of the word,
and they have a good moral effect also^ for they make us
recognise the qualities of other men who were always different
from ourselves, and in most cases superior to ourselves.
Consider how valuable to a critic about to write upon
Rembrandt, would be the experience of a practical kind
which Flameng went through in copying many of his etch-
ings ! It would be half an education in itself.
Let us believe, what is assuredly true, that criticism and
practice may work harmoniously together in the same mind
if only they are wisely directed, and that the critical habit of
the modem intellect does not inevitably lead us to sterility.
Haydon is sometimes quoted as an example of the bad
effects which the critical habit produces in an artist, but all
his waste of effort was the consequence of insufficient critical
culture. Had he possessed a truly critical culture he would
have avoided the waste of energy which we deplore in him,
and either produced art-work within the compass of his
powers, or else directed them to other objects. So in a pro-
fessed critic, Mr. Ruskin, much of what is good in his writing
is due to his experience of practical art-work, and where he
is not so strong the weakness may generally be traced to a
deficiency of practical study. Thus he is strong on moun-
tains and architecture, because he has drawn both a great
deal, but not strong on figure-painting because he has drawn
the figure very little.
CHAPTER VI.
FAVOURABLE AND UNFAVOURABLE
ARTISTIC CONDITIONS,
CUCCESS in etcWng is as much an affair of organisation
as of artistic superiority. Rembrandt was not a greater
artist than Phidias ; but Rembrandt was so constituted as to
be the very type of etchers, their perfect representative,
whereas we may be sure that if Phidias could have tried to
etch he would have failed altogether.^ So amongst living
artists, some of the best of them have been unable to etch,
though they have tried to do so, and some very imperfeet
artists have etched well For example, James Whistler is a
strikingly imperfect artist, but he is a fine etcher.
This may seem to imply that etching is an imperfect art,
a notion I have already contended against It only implies
that etching is an art which pardons some imperfections in
favour of some good qualities. The fact is, that the limits
of Whistler as an artist are by no means the limits of the
art of etching ; that what he does in it is good, but that also
other things may be done in etching which are good, and
that Whistler cannot do, and never will be able to do. But
he has some of the qualities of a great etcher, and as to those
qualities which he has not, their absence is not seriously felt,
does not much interfere with our enjoyment of the artist's
work. For it is the glory of etching that it never exacts
^ Phidias might have used etching to multiply a sculptor's drawings, just as he
might have used any other autographic process, but it is highly improbable that he
would have developed any of the peculiar qualities of the art.
ARTISTIC CONDITIONS. 41
completion, never compels an artist to go farther than he
safely can go. You must, of course, have certain positive
qualities to be able to etch at all ; but if you have these,
your want of other qualities is not likely to be painfully felt
The conditions which are favourable and unfavourable to
etching may be broadly divided under two heads. Lines of
study which tend ultimately to concentration are so far
favourable ; lines of study which tend to elaboration are un-
favourable.^ It does not signify by how much elaboration
your early studies may pass, if they tend steadily to concen-
tration, because you may make very elaborate studies indeed
with the deliberate aim of learning how to concentrate
powerfully. Some of the most powerful masters of concen-
tration have begun by working elaborately, and gradually
eliminated unnecessary detail, till, by a long labour of
thoughtful omission, they arrived at length at such summary
ways of work as best suit the purposes of etching. All that
has to be insisted upon is the tendency of an artist's mind
and work, not so much what he is doing at any particular
time.
Industry cannot make an etcher; it is a question of
temperament, with some industry to give manual skill.
Slow and timid temperaments are naturally disqualified for
an art which exacts decision. You may know from the
pictures of an artist whether he has a chance of becoming
an etcher. French painters usually etch sooner and better
than Germans ; and the English, as might be expected, have
facilities which lie somewhere between the two. The French
have a true conception of etching as a rapid and compre-
hensive art ; but when, as often happens, there is no genuine
individual faculty, they fall into emptiness and idle scrawl-
^ There are elaborate etchings which are also good ones, but these are rare, and
the words in the text are left for their general truth. Besides, even in the most
elaborate plates there are always passages of rapid and concentrated expression,
quite beyond the powers of a slow, undecided mind.
42 ARTISTIC CONDITIONS.
ing. The Germans and English usually fail in another way.
When a Frenchman cannot etch, he flourishes about on the
copper with vain efforts at brilliance and freedom ; when a
German cannot etch, he elaborates the most highly-flnished
and ridiculous compositions. The English have hitherto
preferred to fail after the German manner ; but it is probable
that since the influence of French ideas has been brought to
bear upon us, our bad etchers will fail rather in emptiness
of the rapid than the elaborate kind. It signifies nothing
whether empty work is rapid or elaborate, for in both cases
it is equally worthless ; but the French deserve some credit
for seeing in a dim way what ought to be aimed at, and the
Germans are a little to blame for their wonderful want of
perception of the best qualities of the process.
Sixteen years ago, when our painters were tending to
elaboration of the pre-Raphaelite kind, they were going in a
direction not likely to qualify them for etching. Now, when
they are painting more and more on the principles of abstrac-
tion, they are going towards that condition of mind in which
men etch well.
It deeply concerns an artist's personal comfort whether,
if he attempts to etch, he is so constituted as to be able to
etch well naturally. No art is more discouraging to the
unqualified aspirant Etching looks so delightfully easy,
that the disappointment at failure is proportionate to the firm
confidence in success. A man can draw well, and paint
agreeably, so he believes that he will soon be able to etch ;
and he does etch, but somehow nothing that he executes
seems to have the right degree of life in it ; it is life en-
tangled with rigid sinews of death, and veins in which the
blood is coagulated and cold. This is because his artistic
constitution does not easily throw off" dead and superfluous
matter. It throws it off" ultimately, or he could not paint,
but it does not get rid of it easily and at once ; and there-
fore, for etching, it does not get rid of it in time.
CHAPTER VII.
COMPREHENSIVENESS,
T N the planning of this work, I had given one chapter to
abstraction, and another to comprehensiveness, the diffi-
culty being which to put first. It seemed best to put com-
prehensiveness first, for this reason, that abstraction was
likely to be misunderstood without it ; for there exist many
kinds of abstraction which could only do harm to an etcher,
whereas if he once holds the idea of comprehensiveness in
all its breadth of meaning, he is safe.
An artist works comprehensively when he grasps his
whole subject at once, in all its relations, and works only
with reference to the whole. Etching is eminently compre-
hensive ; it does not, like other branches of design, encourage
the separation of natural qualities, and the exclusive devotion
to one of them. For instance, rigid outline drawing, such
as we find on Etruscan vases, is strongly opposed to the
spirit of etching, and that not because it is too abstract, but
because it excludes facts interesting to etchers, and so is not
sufficiently comprehensive. Again, water-colour blotting
would be almost as much opposed to etching, though in an
opposite direction ; for here, though we have light and shade,
and though things are seized by the middle instead of by
the contour, we suffer from a want of delicate accentuation
of form. If a single stroke in an etching is inserted with
reference to form only, and without reference to the general
light and shade arrangement of the whole work, that stroke
will go far to ruin it ; or if, in obedience to exigencies of
44 COMPREHENSIVENESS,
light and shade, it forgets the right accentuation of form,
then there will be so much the less of that brilliance and
life on which the power of etching so largely depends.
There is the greater need to insist upon comprehensive-
ness that our painters are not generally remarkable for the
possession of it. They too often study things one after
another instead of seeing them all at once ; and the art of
seeing many things at once is as essential to harmony in
painting as the corresponding faculty of hearing many
sounds at the same time is to the enjoyment of harmony in
music. It is not enough to see the leaf, or even the branch,
or the whole tree ; we must grasp the entire landscape, or
we are powerless. Our artists do sometimes grasp their
subjects largely, and then they might succeed if they were
not deterred by the feeling that what is called " finish " is
indispensable ; whereas this finish, when it consists in mere
elaboration of parts, is irretrievable ruin. The study of
etching may have the happiest influence on the progress of
painting itself, for it leads to a conviction that comprehen-
siveness is the first of artistic necessities. The artist who
has it, and keeps it, may add much else to it that is worth
having — much delicate and minute observation, much craft
of arrangement and subtlety of hand. But for the painter
or etcher who has it not, whatever his other attainments, they
are of little value, because they can never display themselves
in the right time and place ; but, like the reminiscences of
people without tact, are always brought upon the tapis when
they can create nothing but irritation.
So long as we refer to etching alone, we cannot prove
the full value of the great qualities on which success in
etching depends. A great etching is the product of a
grandly constituted mind ; every stroke of it has value
exactly proportionate to the mental capacity of the artist ;
so that a treatise on etching is necessarily a treatise on the
mental powers of great men.
COMPREHENSIVENESS, 45
Not every reader would see at a glance whether all work
was comprehensive or not, but most men know what com-
prehensiveness is in other departments of human endeavour.
It is the faculty of seeing things in their just relations, the
faculty which checks our constant tendency to absorption in
narrowing specialities. It keeps our work in due proportion,
by constantly reminding Us of the true extent of its great
field, for it embraces the whole field with its wide vision.
We are always tempted to settle in some pleasant nook or
comer of our possessions and leave the rest uncultivated ;
but if we have comprehensiveness, it will not allow us to do
this. The most striking characteristic of the comprehensive
intellect is its tolerance of necessary local evils and imper-
fections, its anxiety for great results only, and carelessness
of partial success. It is the faculty of generalship, which
knows that no battle can be won without sacrifice, and
consciously pays a price for its victories.
In ordinary life much of the narrowness that leads to
intolerance and Philistinism comes from the weakness of this
faculty. This narrowness is the essence of provincialism, of
the prejudices of caste, of that kind of patriotism which is
only the provincial spirit on a larger scale. In literature,
the want of comprehensiveness leads to an infinite amount
of wordy controversy. A hundred writers see a hundred
aspects of the truth, and each copiously argues that his own
view is the only view worth considering. Want of compre-
hensiveness is, however, of less consequence in current litera-
ture, especially in periodical literature, than in the fine arts,
because unity is less necessary in articles than in pictures, or
statues, or etchings. Many articles serve the useful purpose
of drawing attention to the subjects they treat of, without
being in themselves proportioned works of art ; they are
merely the talk of the day, well expressed and widely circu-
lated. But a picture or an etching is more than this, or at
least aspires to be more. It aspires to have artistic value ;
46 COMPREHENSIVENESS.
and there is no artistic value without unity, and unity is the
result of comprehensiveness.
But may not unity come from a certain narrowness also ?
May not the comprehensive intellect, which is alive to so
many aspects of things, introduce the fruits of too various
observations, and end by producing discord out of its very
opulence ?
This danger exists so long as an intellect is becoming
comprehensive, because, in this condition of gradual exten-
sion, the newest acquisition always has an exa^erated
importance, and is likely to be displayed and insisted upon
disproportionately, and even out of season. And there is a
narrowness which ensures a relative and unenviable safety ;
but we are not the less bound to urge the desirableness of
cultivating a large and comprehensive spirit Above all, it
should be well understood that etching is not, as some
imagine, a fit pastime for small minds ; but that, on the
contrary, its great glory is to offer the means of powerful
and summary expression to the largest. And we may be
assured that for a brief expression to be powerful it must be
concentrated from large masses of acquired knowledge. I
know not how many roses are needed for one small phial of
precious attar, but I know that there rises from every good
etching such a perfume of concentrated thought that a million
flowers must have bloomed for it in the garden of some
fertile and cultivated mind.
CHAPTER VIII.
ABSTRACTION.
PTCHING does not proceed so much by abstraction as
by comprehensive selection ; but abstraction has some
place in the art, nevertheless, and is to be admitted frankly
on certain occasions, and in a modified way very generally.
To understand what abstraction in art is, little more is
necessary than a reference to ancient sculpture and design,
especially Assyrian or Egyptian. That abstraction was
instinctive, and therefore in the best periods as much above
criticism as the instinctive labours of the lower animals.
What the Egyptian and the Assyrian both did, and what
even the more thoughtful Greek did also, though in a more
beautiful way, was to take certain facts of nature and leave
the r^st The facts which were taken were then treated
arbitrarily, or according to the dictates of fixed customs.
The facts which were left were no more regarded than if
they had never existed.
Abstraction may be of the most opposite kinds. There
is the abstraction of a Greek vase, and the abstraction of a
blot by David Cox. In the first, outline is the truth pre-
served, and effect the truth sacrificed ; in the second, outline
is sacrificed and effect preserved. And there are abstrac-
tions within abstraction. Thus, in outline work, we may
purposely eliminate all lines that are expressive of softness
and feebleness, so as to give a character of severity to our
work ; or we may eliminate the lines of strength, and lend a
yet greater languor to those of tenderness and voluptuous-
48 ABSTRACTION.
ness. And in the modern blot for effect we may be taking
one set of tones or another, since complete imitation of tones
is as impossible as complete imitation of lines, and artists
take what they want of each, and that only.
Now the kinds of abstraction commonly resorted to in
etching are two. First, when an etcher knows that his art
cannot really imitate, he resorts to abstraction, and boldly
interprets. Secondly, when he could get nearer to imitation
if he chose to spend the time, but does not choose, then also
he works in an abstract manner.
If there is a strong probability that your technical skill
will not carry you through some difficult bit of imitation,
give us rather a piece of abstraction, however rude, which
may show that you have understood the thing to be rendered.
In the works of great etchers there is every conceivable
shade of gradation, from the most marvellous imitation to
the strongest abstraction. Even in the same plate we may
often trace varieties of this kind.^ Imitative finish may be
given to some central point of interest, and the execution of
the rest of the work may become more and more frankly
abstract till it reaches, in the outline of some cloud or dis-
tance, an abstraction as great in its way as that of an
Assyrian bas-relief.
* A very remarkable and well-known instance of this is Rembrandt's famous
Hundred Guilder Print The figures in the centre and those to the right are
wrought on principles of mingled imitation and abstraction, certain details, as, for
instance, the near arm and hand of the praying figure close to Jesus, being almost
purely imitative ; but in the figures to the spectator's left the principle of abstrac-
tion predominates, and to such a degree that a child's head is drawn in pure out-
line, and five or six strokes of the point are made to do duty (very efficiently) for a
man's beard. Rembrandt's work generally is a sort of play between the extremes
of imitation and abstraction, the degree of either that he chose to give being
dependent on his own momentary caprice — a caprice, however, that was generally
influenced by subtle artistic considerations. For example, in the etching just re-
ferred to, Rembrandt used much abstraction in the figures to the left, because it
permitted him to leave a great deal of white paper as a contrast to the dark shades
on the right of the composition, and by this artifice he gained much breadth.
ABSTRACTION. 49
Abstraction does not appear to be a rare power. Every-
body is in the habit of exercising it in common life. It is
a common means of making things intelligible, and abstract
drawing is usually more intelligible to uneducated persons,
than the art which attempts a full rendering of nature.
When we teach children to draw, we begin, as the Egyptians
did, with rude, firm outlines; when we narrate events to
simple people, we follow the same method, and purposely
leave out all delicate and complicated considerations. It is
not the abstraction of etching that makes it unintelligible to
the people, but the complexity of the truths which it attempts
to interpret simultaneously. A strong outline that goes all
round its subject, though to the feeling of an etcher usually
detestable, would be easily understood, but a fragmentary
line which only indicates a quarter of a contour, and that
probably not the real contour after all, and which hints half-
a-dozen things, is likely, in the ^y^s of most people, to mean
exactly nothing.
£
CHAPTER IX.
SELECTION.
A BSTRACTION is, of course, a kind of selection, but
it is not the kind of selection that I desire to speak
of here.
Abstraction is too analytic a selection for our present
purpose. The artist who abstracts does not make a
summary of the whole truth before him, but takes out a
truth, and sets it forth in as evident a way as he possibly
can, in a much more evident way than nature's. He acts as
an anatomist who, having killed a wild animal for the sake
of its skeleton only, tore away every fibre of muscle and
threw it to his dogs ; after which he set himself to clean the
bones by boiling them, and, being installed in his museum,
erected his white and perfect bone structure without a
thought of the flesh that the dogs devoured. This is abstrac-
tion— a process of analysis followed by many rejections and
few reserves.
The selection of which I would now speak is synthetic,
and its object is to remain synthetic to the utmost possible
extent. It does not try to detach one truth from its fellows,
but to give the sum of all the truths. By means of this
synthetic selection a master in etching will fully convey the
ideas of structure, of light and shade, and of local colour,
with the same set of touches. The more complex the
expression, and the simpler the means used, the greater will
be the power of the master.
In the infinite treasuries of natural truth some orders of
SELECTION, 51
fact are better suited to etching than others are, and although
the comprehensiveness of the great etcher makes him alive
to all these orders of fact, his judgment in selection leads
him to decided preferences. He desires to be as synthetic
as possible in his view, and as broadly receptive, yet he
knows the limitations of his art ; and though anxious to
express the sum of all the truths, is obliged in selection to
look with especial care for the kind of truth which etching
renders best This is done, however, in the case of every
truly noble etcher, in simple prudence, not from pride — some-
times indeed from real humility, as when a master does not
like his own more elaborate renderings of certain truths, and
prefers to indicate them by some rapid and seemingly care-
less interpretation, in which, if there is any contempt at all,
it is not of nature, but of the artist's own poverty of
resource.
On some spots on the coast of England, especially, if I
remember well, on the north shore beyond the castle at
Scarborough, there are sands mixed with fine particles of
iron. The children take magnets with them there, and so
separate the iron from the grains of sand. They want the
iron, they do not want the sand, and they are fortunate in
possessing an almost piagical implement, which at a touch
separates the one from the other.
So acts the selecting genius of great etchers. Though
truly comprehensive and synthetic, and quite remote in
general feeling from the abstraction of Assyrian sculptors,
they find, nevertheless, in nature certain treasures to them
especially precious, and which they easily draw to themselves
by a constant and sublime magnetism. He who has not the
magnet cannot select in this unerring way. You cannot
teach selection of this kind ; you may talk and write till you
are weary, but you will not advance one student a step
nearer to the mysterious and instinctive power of choice,
which is the privilege of genius alone.
52 SELECTION.
All that can be done« all that in such a treatise as this
any writer can be expected to do, is to remind readers if
they know it already, and tell them if they do not, that this
selection is essential to all good etching, this lordly and high
choice, which is authorised by the most comprehensive know-
ledge of the wealth of nature.
But selection, I may be told, even selection of this
synthetic kind, is equally necessary in painting, and therefore
need not be treated of here, in a book devoted to what be-
longs peculiarly to etching. It is necessary in all painting,
except in the abstract schools which reject it in favour of
abstraction, but it is far more important, relatively to other
qualities, in this more rapid and summary art of etching. If
a painter cannot select at once, he gets the superfluities out
of his work by a slow and painful process, like a long malady,
or hides them under equally superfluous elaboration. But an
etcher who cannot select rapidly is lost.
CHAPTER X.
SENSITIVENESS.
T FIND that great etchers are decidedly a more sensitive
body of men than line engravers, and more generally
sensitive than some celebrated painters. Certain schools of
painting have definitely encouraged insensitiveness to whole
orders of truth, under the pretext of style ; but etching, being
an obscure and neglected art, has fortunately been too much
despised by the professors of the grand style to be very
actively injured by them. If any student, however, chooses
to take Agostino Caracci for his model, he may, no doubt,
arrive at insensitiveness even in etching.
Sensitiveness in ordinary life is so often spoken of as a
weakness or a fault, so often attributed to morbid conditions,
that it is needful to claim a right consideration for a kind
of sensitiveness, which is neither a fault, nor a weakness,
nor a disease. The work of the great men is usually at the
same time both exquisitely sensitive, and capable of demon-
strations of strength so overpowering, that it seems brutal to
minds which have neither its tenderness nor its force. The
softer intellects are not rough in this noble way, and so they
resent the strong markings of the great etchers as a kind
of affront to their own refinement ; but, on the other hand,
neither have they the etcher's exquisite sensitiveness, and
though it does not irritate them as the apparent coarseness
does, it gets no recognition from them, and remains outside
their estimate of the artist.
Whoever aspires to be an etcher should try to be sensi-
54 SENSITIVENESS.
tive in the best sense. True sensitiveness is not disease,
but the highest life of the purest health. It is easily lost,
in the turmoil of the common world, or so far injured as to
leave nothing but an occasional capability of noble pleasure.
How are we to keep it if we have it ? It may be lost in
too busy intercourse with men, but so also it dies in the dull
apathy of long solitude, and the Shepherd on Ben Cruachan
has as little of it as the apprentice in the Strand. Its
most fatal enemies are over-stimulus and deficiency of
stimulus.
In great capitals, the over-stimulus comes in a hundred
forms. One very injurious form of it is too many pictures
and prints. We will not rail against exhibitions, since they
are inevitable, and the best method hitherto devised for the
publication of new paintings ; but it is well to guard our-
selves against the invasion of mere quantity. No man
living can really study more than ten fresh works of art a
day ; he may glance at more in order to select the ten, but
he cannot study more. Who would expect any one to read
more than ten volumes a day ? And is there not as much
in a painting or etching that really deserves to be studied
as in most volumes } Londoners and Parisians seem to
have extensive views of the quantity of art a man may
digest in a given time ; and so far as I have been able to
calculate, they expect a critic to make up his mind on two
hundred pictures per day, with a stiff volume on aesthetics,
and a new book-illustrator every evening.
Errors in this direction may be avoided if we remember
that the mind has a digestion just as the body has, and
that it can only take in a certain limited quantity of aliment
in the twenty-four hours. Excesses are paid for by a loss
of tone, a loss of sensitiveness, a loss of appetite. Then
both art and nature lose their charm, and good work cannot
even be enjoyed, far less executed.
In the country, on the other hand, from the want of fresh
SENSITIVENESS. 55
stimulus in the sufficiently frequent sight of new works,
people fall into that mortal dulness which is one of the well-
known marks of provincialism. It is admitted amongst
artists that no painter can absent himself very long from
capital cities without declining in power ; and even landscape
painters, whose material lies in Alpine valleys or Highland
glens, pass regularly some considerable portion of the year
in the ugliest capital in Europe.
The best life is that which includes both town and
country, and does not in either allow itself to be invaded
and overwhelmed by quantity, either of art or nature. The
powers of one man in the presence of the immense accu-
mulations of the race must always be infinitely little, and
an individual human being can no more study all the art in
the world than he can eat all the food in the world. Etching
is a pleasanter study in this respect of quantity than painting
is, for the number of etchers is limited ; and since the art has
never received great encouragement, few artists have left
great quantities of etchings behind them. The danger to the
sensitiveness of etchers is not so much from seeing too many
etchings as too many pictures.
In beautiful scenery the faculties may be dulled by too
much nature, as well as too much art Amongst great
mountains we are especially exposed to a spirit of reverie,
which makes us gaze for ever and do nothing. What we
can do seems so little, what they are so much, that we are
likely to fall into contemplative indolence, unless roused by
the ardour of scientific research, or the necessity for money-
getting. Neither of these motives leads to the study of
etching, and there is always some probability that an etcher
who should persistently absent himself- from fine collections,
and live in the midst of a too magnificent nature, would
injure his artistic sensitiveness, by too much stimulus of the
one kind and too little of the other.
CHAPTER XL
EMPHASIS.
T N all human communication, when there is energy enough
to move men, there is emphasis — in oratory, in literature,
in acting, in painting, in common daily talk, in music, even in
the pantomime of gesture.
All emphasis in design is, and must be, a departure from
the rigid truth. Emphasis with pencil or etching needle is
the exaggeration of some point which has powerfully struck
the artist, or to which he intends to direct the attention of
the spectator. And such exaggerations are departures from
the truth in more Ways than one ; they obscure other facts,
and destroy the equilibrium of nature. Yet a design without
emphasis would be uninteresting, except as a curiosity ; it
would certainly have no interest as art. Any human com-
munication in which the strict order and proportion of nature
should be followed would fail of its effect upon mankind.
The principle is, that you are not to tell mankind all that has
occurred, but what it concerns them to know. Now in every
event of history, and in every natural scene, there are
millions of minute facts which nobody cares about or needs
to care about — facts which, if narrated, would only overcharge
the hearer's memory uselessly, and hinder him from giving
due attention to the great points. Your time and his being
limited, you tell him what seems to you of most importance ;
and to impress this on his mind you drive it home with a
hearty thrust of emphasis, like a man charging a gun. Artists
do exactly the same thing, and etchers especially, for a par-
EMPHASIS, 57
ticular reason. The more elaborate a work is, the less» as a
general rule^ is emphasis resorted to because when there is
time to make a full exposition of a matter, there is the less
need for violence in statement If you have to reply to an
adversary in one sentence, you make it a biting epigram ; if
you have an hour before you, it tells better to demolish him
with studied moderation. Now the etchers, in comparison to
the painters, are not accustomed to lengthy utterances. To
be brief and go to the point at once is a quality which they
aim at This brevity naturally leads to an emphatic manner
of work, and it may be observed that the same etcher who
strongly emphasizes in a rapid sketch on the copper is far
more sober in statement when he works on a laboured plate.
But there is a kind of emphasis, necessary to all etching,
even the most laboured, and which readily escapes attention.
It is the delicate accentuation that lives in every stroke, like
the caressing bow-pressures of an accomplished violinist
You think there is no emphasis at all, that the etcher has
been telling you plain facts in a plain way, and yet you have
been interested and pleased. If you have been interested,
it is quite certain that there must have been emphasis ; the
simple truth would have left you cold. And yet you are in-
terested in nature, and there is no emphasis there. Very true,
but there was emphasis in the way you looked at nature ;
your emotion supplied then what the emotion of the artist
must supply for you in art
And might not a spectator's emotion in the presence of a
literally true etching supply a kind of emphasis also, as it
would before nature 'i
It might perhaps, but it never does. No strictly accurate
drawing that I have ever seen has had the power to move a
single spectator. Accurate work — that is, work without
emphasis — is always passed by with indifference. It does
not tell men what to look for, or why they are to look at all,
and so they do not feel under any obligation to look. An
58 EMPHASIS,
artist is a person who undertakes, or ought to undertake, to
establish a human communication between nature and man-
kind; and all good human communication is preceded by
selection and enforced by emphasis.
Yet we must not be too emphatic With cultivated
people the most effectual emphasis is very subtle and deli-
cate, avoiding violence, and seeming rather to arise from the
courteous wish to spare trouble to the audience, than from
any eagerness to compel attention. If an artist will listen
to the best conversation that is to be had, and also to the
best music, he may safely carry so much emphasis as he will
have heard there into his own practice. There is a difference
between such just and necessary stress as this and the vio-
lence of bad manners and bad art
CHAPTER XII.
PASSION,
nPHE mechanical labours of the h'ne engraver, extending
sometimes over several years on a single plate, require
industry and steadiness rather than passion. No passionate
temperament could easily bring itself to make careful lines
. with a burin when the only result of a thousand days spent
in such work should be a translation of another man's
thought Great skill is needed, and infinite patience and
care, but no tormenting and disturbing emotion. Hence the
best line engravers seem to be either men of cold tempera-
ment originally, or men who have learned the necessity for
coolness in their art, reserving the fire that is in them for
other studies, or for their amusements.
But with the etcher these conditions of success are re-
versed, at least in the order of their importance. He needs,
no doubt, some manual skill, some patience, and a moderate
amount of care, but these avail him nothing if they are
accompanied by the engraver's coldness. The one capacity
which makes all his other powers available is the capacity
for passionate emotion. To feel vividly, to be possessed
for a few hours by some overmastering thought, and record
the thought before the fire has time to die out of it — this is
the first condition of success in etching.
Therefore all schools of art which try to suppress passion
are injurious to etching, and nobody can be an etcher who
either belongs to them or believes their doctrines. The
classical school in figure-painting, and the topographic school
6o PASSION.
in landscape^ have never produced a good etcher. Of course
neither of these schools set itself to the suppression of all
passion, for the classical designers have illustrated scenes of
very strong passion indeed^ and even the topographic land-
scape painters have, or had at the beginning, a passionate
devotion to topographic truth ; but they have both encou-
raged a cold indifference to much that no etcher can afford
to regard coldly. The classical figure-painters, in the pur-
suit of a learned ideal, taught themselves to despise the
aspects of the common world, and to this day have a lofty
contempt for every artist who is humble enough and intel-
ligent enough to take an interest in it The topographers,
on the other hand, though they make an exception in favour
of Turner, whose genius they recognise, regard the deviations
from literal truth which, in the works of less famous painters,
are due to genuine passion, as a want of conscientiousness
and a blamable laxity of principle.
The student who desires to etch is earnestly recommended
to keep clear of all doctrine which endeavours to chill his
feeling in any way. To etch well, an artist hardly can be
too passionate in his likings. Etch what impresses you, and
as it impresses you, and let no theorists poison your mind
with the virus of a morbid conscientiousness.
CHAPTER XIII.
InL4^^KX£SS.
II^TCHIXG is eminently a straightforward art, which is one
great reason for its unpopularity. People do not like
plain lines that tell rude truths ; they prefer fanc>'* arrange-
ments. No good etcher will condescend to fancy arrange-
The delightfulness of etching, to us who care for i^ is
especially this frankness. No art is so entirely honest;
painting and engra^ng have almost always some question-
able ingredient of attractiveness, some prettiness or polish to
suit widespread but lamentable tastes. The etchers, with
few exceptions, have not attempted to make themselves
agreeable in this way, probably from a conviction that their
art is so inherently unpopular that it would be of no use.
The consequence is, that of all artists they are the most
simple and direct They are as cunning, and crafty, and
subtle as you will in the artifices of method, but it is an
honest cunning that aims only at qualities really worth hav-
ing; and if these can be reached in a simple way, the
simple way is always preferred In saying that etching is
an especially honest art, I mean that it does not resort to
apparently difficult ways of doing easy things, in order to
get credit for difficulties overcome. On the contrary, it is
remarkable for preferring apparently simple ways of doing
difficult things. So unpretending is it, that the master-
pieces of the art attract no attention from the general public,
and people who cluster in a close group round a showy
62 FRANKNESS,
picture, will pass without a glance the most exquisite ex-
pression of an aquafortist
Etched lines look coarse and awkward very often, the
lines of shading seem irregular, pains are not taken to hide
the errors of the artist ; sometimes he roughly corrects, and
lets you see that he has corrected It happens even that
defects in the varnish have been allowed to remain in the
bitten copper, and print themselves on every proof taken.
Etchers seem to be an idle, careless set of men, who do not
finish properly. They are not sufficiently polished, not in
harmony with the usages of society. These wayward,
eccentric strokes of theirs show a too rampant and irrepres-
sible individualism ; if they would learn to shade evenly as
the eng^vers do, and make neat curves and lozenges, would
it not be much better ? Frankness may be well on due
occasion, but we may have too much of it
This is the way many people feel about the frankness of
etching, if they do not say so.
CHAPTER XIV.
SPEED.
TN the letterpress which accompanied Mr. Haden's etch-
ings a letter of his was quoted, in which he spoke of the
advantages of etching an entire plate at one sitting. The
unity of impression so obtained was, Mr. Haden thought, an
important gain, and enough to counterbalance much elabora-
tion. Looking through Mr. Haden's own etchings by the
light of this expression of opinion, we find some which may
have been finished at one sitting, and others which must
have required a longer time. It will be found in practice
that a sketch on copper may be efTectively done in a sitting,
but that an etching in which the full resources of the pro-
cess are brought to bear will occupy several sittings. It may
be also observed that when an etching, supposed to be exe-
cuted at once, is afterwards corrected and carried through
several states, the sittings required for these corrections
ought to be taken into account, and that it is not accurate
to class such a plate amongst plates etched at one sitting.
If this is strictly attended to, it will be found that an exceed-
ingly small proportion of etchings have really been exe-
cuted in the way Mr. Haden advocates.
It is right, however, to insist on a certain value in mere
rapidity. A rapid stroke, when not so rapid as to miss the
necessary modulations, is generally better than a slow one,
and a concise expression preferable to a diffuse expres-
64 SPEED,
sion.* The way to attain true speed is to spend a great deal
of time in looking, and having decided upon the strokes to be
laid, lay them at once, and leave them. It is told of John
Phillip, that when he painted he showed no sign of hurry,
but would look hard at nature and then lay a few firm
touches, not to be disturbed, and that in this careful way he
was really getting his picture forward rapidly. So in etching,
there should be no unthinking haste, but every line should
be determiited upon before it is made.
A good principle to remember is, that for an etching to
look fresh we must avoid weariness. This is why Mr. Haden
recommends a single sitting ; it seems to him that the fresh-
ness of the mind, its first virgin impression of a subject, may
be kept three or four hours, but not very much longer.
Before the mind acknowledges fatigue it loses its keen interest
in the subject which occupies it, and this keen interest is
what we have mainly to rely upon for the vivacity of our
work. A jaded etcher is sure to spoil his plate. Without
making a rule to etch only plates of one sitting, which would
confine us to sketching, it is quite necessary to stop before
the mind wanders or goes on another tack. The plate, if
not yet sufficiently advanced to be printed, may be laid aside
and completed at some future time, when the freshness of
* Every question about art has two sides, and this question about speed is not
an exception to the rule. There are qualities which come of speed and qualities
which come of deliberation. However, there is such a thing as deliberate speed,
and I should never advocate any other.
Rembrandt gives examples of all degrees of speed and all degrees of deliberate
slowness too. Sometimes he aims at the qualities that rapidity attains when
directed by knowledge and genius, sometimes at the qualities that infinite patience
may attain under the same high mental guidance. The great versatility of etching
permits the most opposite treatment. Your work may be as swift as handwriting,
or it may be as slow as the progress of an engraver's burin ; good work has been
done in both ways. I should say, never work quickly from bravado, nor slowly
firom an exaggerated conscientiousness, but choose the rapid or slow expression as
it harmonises with your temper and accommodates itself to your thought
SPEED. 6s
interest in it may return to us. If this freshness should not
return, the plate is better abandoned.*
* Landseer attached as much importance to speed in painting as some etchers
have attached to it in their own art. He painted quickly on principle, and settled
everything about his composition before going to work, spending marvellously little
time in the actual setting forth of his ideas upon canvas. He was fully alive to
the fact that rapidity is a good thing in itself, provided only you have knowledge
enough, and provided that the knowledge is iat your fingers' ends. After one of his
amazing feats of speed he felt a profound satisfaction, not in the half-miraculous
achievement, but in having got his thought well expressed whilst it remained fresh
and vivid in his mind.
i
CHAPTER XV.
MOTIVES.
HP HE motive of a picture is not so much material as
spiritual. It is a certain condition of the mind, pro-
duced by the subject, and which the artist, in rendering that
subject, desires to reproduce in the minds of spectators.
This is the reason why great artists so often choose subjects
which seem trifling, and also why Philistinism always mis-
understands and despises art What a great landscape-
painter attempts to render is not the natural landscape, but
the state of feeling which the landscsfpe produces in himself.
Since etching is especially an art of feelings an art in which
feeling is supreme and mechanism nowhere, it is very im-
portant that the etcher should be able to enter into the true
conception of artistic motives.
A motive should never be valued according to the
popular estimate of its importance, nor even by the effect
it may produce on some other artist. If you listen to the
people, you may be prevented from studying in some region
quite full of good motives ; it seems barren and uninterest-
ing to them, and they will make you believe that it is barren.
So even an accomplished artist may mislead you by his
report of a place ; he may find nothing there suitable to his
own idiosyncrasy, and yet for you it may be full of treasure.
The converse of this is also true, though not quite to the
same extent. A district may be popular, it may even be
very attractive to some good painters, and yet you may not
find there what you want. This, however, is likely to occur
MOTIVES, 67
more rarely, because if a district is popular there is sure to
be either sublimity or beauty in it ; and although it may
not be the particular sublimity or beauty which most closely
touches you, it is always probable that some phase of these
will awaken your interest
Every artist has theories about the choice of subjects
which are merely personal and do not concern others, yet
he believes them to be universally applicable. We have to
guard ourselves against the strong personal feeling of our
artist-friends, especially when it expresses itself in negation
and discouragement. They are always ready to say that
subjects are unfit for pictorial treatment when they are not
in harmony with their own personal constitution. Almost
anything is a subject, but it only becomes a motive when
an artist is moved by it. An etcher ought never to care
about subjects, but should etch motives only.
To do this requires great faith, great confidence in our
feelings and impressions. This faith is assailed on every
side by the scepticism of people who do not see as the
artist sees ; but he should not let these attacks disturb him.
Other people do not see what he sees, because they are not
himself; but if he is quite faithful to his own impressions,
he will gain sympathy in the long run, not from everybody,
but from those who are near enough to him to enter into
his ideas.
One of the great advantages which results from perfect
fidelity to motive is the unity of each piece of work when
it leaves the etcher's hand. Under the impulse of a feeling
he has produced a work, and the feeling will have fused the
material into a whole. What we most need for unity is an
unreserved surrender to our impression, a simple faith that
what has moved us is worth recording, hov/ever poor and
uninteresting it may seem.
And as submission to every real motive is a duty, so are
resistance to and rebellion against false motives and half-
CHAPTER I.
ALBERT DURER.
Tn\URER was so magnificent a master in the powers and
qualities he cared for and aimed at, that it is the more
necessary to remember the limitations of his art. His draw-
ing is, in its way, superb ; his management of the burin
above criticism ; his chiaroscuro quite arbitrary and false ;
his knowledge of local colour apparently slight, and never
certainly to be depended upon ; his aerial perspective null.
We know Durer by his engravings mainly ; but he could
etch, and was a true etcher, though he practised the art little.
Two of his etchings are described below.
The mechanical perfection of his handicraft as a line-
engraver does not concern us here, and must be passed with
this simple mention, though it is a tempting subject But
Durer's mind concerns us ; and, admirable as was the perfec-
tion of his manual work, he does not owe his greatness to
that, but to mental originality and force.
He was one of the most grave artists who ever lived.
His gravity went so far that he could do things which, in a
jesting age like ours, would have been criticised and carica-
tured without mercy. For instance, imagine what would be
said if an English academician painted " Samson killing the
Lion " as Durer designed that subject, or even such composi-
tions as his " Knight and Lady," or the " Satyr and Lady
behind the Shield with the Death's Head," or the woodcut
of the " Visitation." These, in their way, are all truly great
art, but great art of a kind which would not be possible "in
this century, on account of our highly developed sense of the
ridiculous, and our levity.
7 2 ALBERT D URER.
There is a quality in all Durer's work which gives it
inexhaustible interest ; it always makes us feel that we have
not yet got to the bottom of it, that there are meanings in it
deeper than any we have yet read, and that closer and more
intelligent study will be rewarded by farther knowledge and
fuller enjoyment. His intense seriousness, his powerful and
somewhat morbid imagination, gave him a tendency to philo-
sophical and poetical suggestion somewhat beyond the range
of graphic art It is easy to propose solutions of Durer's
enigmas, but what he really intended, in some of his most
elaborate plates, will perhaps remain for ever a mystery.
Who knows what was in Durer's mind when he engraved
the " Great Horse ^ ? Certainly his purpose was not simply
the designing of a muscular quadruped.
It would not be difficult for a writer who, for many years,
has loved and studied the noble work of Durer, to occupy
several pages with the expression of his long-accumulating
thought ; but any elaborate study of this master would be
out of place here, because it would have to be based upon
his engravings, and not upon his etchings. Even of the
etchings themselves it would be an affectation to say very
much beyond this, that they stre right in workmanship, and
as good in conception as the artist's other religious pieces.
It was not in the conception of scenes of sacred history that
Durer far surpassed his contemporaries.
St. 3erome. — ^The saint is seated in a rocky place, with a
book before him on a rude table made with a board placed
upon stones ; there is a lion at his feet and a little water.
(Dated 15 12.)
The Virgin and Child, — The Virgin is seated on the
edge of a rude trough filled with hay or straw. To her left
is an old man with a long beard, and behind her are three
figures — a woman and two men. The reader will find a
very rich impression of this etching in the British Museum
the upper proof on page 1 8 of the Durer volume there.
»-'
CHAPTER IL
REMBRANDT.
T^VERY art has its great representative master, and the
representative etcher is Rembrandt He was so consti-
tuted, and he so trained himself, as to become, in his maturity,
the most consummate aquafortist who has hitherto appeared.
There is, however, a difficulty in writing about him which
does not present itself in the case of less celebrated artists ;
he has been made the subject of such unlimited eulogy, that
the sincere expression of critical appreciation must seem
faint and pale after the ardours of genuine or affected fanati-
cism. Rembrandt is what the French call a god of art The
phrase sounds a little blasphemous to English ears; but,
whether blasphemous or not, it describes with perfect accuracy
the relation of certain famous artists towards their admirers,
Rembrandt and one or two others are in a very strict sense
the gods of connoisseurs, and the kind of homage they receive
is not critical, but has the nature of worship or adoration.
After that the critic has a discouraging task before him, for
however loud his praise, it is inaudible in the unceasing
chorus of traditional hymn-singing; and however mild the
expression of a doubt, it is likely to be resented as a species
of atheism. False enthusiasm of all kinds is often consider-
ably noisier than true enthusiasm ; and it is not easy for a
critic, whose admiration is only based on careful study of the
works of an artist, to emulate the ardour of those who have
never studied him at all.* Considering, therefore, that no-
• The enthusiasm about the classical writers (not merely Latin and Greek, birt
74 REMBRANDT,
thing in the way of phrase-making can be expected to equal
what has been accomplished already in honour of the name
of Rembrandt, the present writer abandons the rhetoric of
eulogy to more adventurous and enterprising authors, and
confines himself to a simple analysis of Rembrandt's qualities
and powers.
Technical skill is not the highest gift of an artist, but it
is his most necessary accomplishment, for without it he can-
not worthily realise his conceptions, however elevated. This
is a truism, and has been said before in various ways, but it
may be well to say it in this place once again, because Rem-
brandt holds his supreme rank primarily on technical grounds-
Let us, for the present, set aside the question of his intellec-
tual power, and reserve considerations of taste, inquiring
simply whether he could really etch, or whether his work,
like that of many other clever painters who have etched, is
foreign to the true genius of the art
A great French painter gave this counsel to his pupils :
*' ^bauchez toujoursr Our English art language is so limited
that we cannot translate the word ebaucher, which means the
preparatory brushing-in of a picture ; but what the painter
intended to recommend was the practice of carrying forward
the picture, always on the same principle of comprehensive
sketching, until at last it reached a sufficient completion,
being brought to it insensibly, as it were, and without any
fixed intention of finish ; the finish coming of itself after
much sketching upon and within sketching. The advice was
excellent, even as addressed to painters ; but etchers need a
like belief even more urgently. An etching should always
be conceived purely as a sketch, and what people call a
" finished " etching ought to be nothing more than a sketch
carried farther. Rembrandt was always technically safe,
of all countries) is always loudest in the case of persons who read them little or not
at all, on the same principle, it may be supposed, which makes religious bigotry
most energetic in those who expend little energy in the direction of moral effort.
REMBRANDT, 75
because he never lost hold of the idea of the sketch, and his
most laboured work is still strictly conceived on the principles
of sketching.
At this stage in our study of the great master it may be
well to pause, for there exists a widely-spread misapprehen-
sion of the nature of a sketch. Sketching is held to be an
easy form of artistic expression, because it is rapid and
apparently slight when done, but the knowledge required
for a sketch is as great as that needed for a " finished "
drawing, the only difference being that, the slighter and
swifter the expression, the greater is the necessity for
comprehensiveness and selection. It is only the most
accomplished artists who, in any true sense, can be said to
sketch at all, because it is only when the facts of nature are
thoroughly known that the most necessary ones can be
selected from the mass. One of the common illusions of
dilettantism is the belief that the talent of the sketcher is
easily accessible, but the amateur is just as likely to rival
the finish of Van Eyck as the liberty of Rembrandt.
Rembrandt always sketched, and his most finished work
is sketching carried forwards.
The adherence to this principle is philosophically right
and defensible, on the ground that, whenever we see com-
prehensively, we see nature itself as a more or less advanced
sketch, never in perfect completion. When we lose artistic
comprehensiveness and become analytic, — as, for instance,
when we examine the buckling of harness before starting
for a drive, — we do not see the object as a sketcher would,
but at such times we do not see at all in the artistic sense ;
we are, for the time being, blind.
The next notable fact about Rembrandt is, that he saw
and etched with the most various degrees of abstraction, so
that his sketching passes from the very slightest and rudest
croquis to what is popularly accepted as finished work. All
these degrees of abstraction he had constantly at command.
76 REMBRANDT.
and used them sometimes in the same plate, passing with
subtle gradation from one to the other, as it suited him, and
so leading us to dwell upon what he considered best worth
our study.
So that, if we take the whole series of the plates of
Rembrandt, we shall find separate illustrations of sketching
in all degrees of abstraction ; and also, if we take certain
particular plates, we shall find in each of them a concentra-
tion of these various interpretations of nature ; but, however
near the apparent approach to " finish," the most elaborate
work is still pure sketching.
Another point which distinguishes Rembrandt from many
inferior aquafortists, is his manly use, on due occasion, of
the frank etched line. He knew the beauty and the value
of it, and was so far from trying to dissimulate it in deference
to popular taste, that he laid it boldly and bare wherever he
saw the need of it, even in his most careful and elaborate
performances. There is only one Englishman, Haden, who
has used the line in this direct, effectual way, and Rem-
brandt taught him. Turner could use it, also, but he looked
always to mezzotint to help him out Of modern French-
men, Lalanne, Appian, Chifflart, Jongkind, and Daubigny
employ the free line with various degrees of success, but no
one has ever yet used it like Rembrandt ; and in this respect
even the greatest of the old masters are feeble in comparison
with him — all, except Vandyke.
He was very various in method, so that some amateurs, in
Ignorance of the usual processes of the art, have attributed
to him secrets peculiar to himself There is no evidence,
however, that Rembrandt did more than employ the pro-
cesses known to all etchers, and the peculiarity of his work
was not a peculiarity of method, but a surpassing excellence
of skill. So little is generally known about etching, that
men who have a reputation for connoisseurship are sometimes
unacquainted with the details of practice, so that the little
REMBRANDT. 77
artifices of method, which any one may- learn who will take
the trouble, appear to them mysterious and inexplicable.
It may be well to gfuard the reader against a mistake to
which he may be exposed in reading French criticisms of
Rembrandt, in which some impressions of his plates are said
to be in the maniire noire, a phrase commonly employed for
mezzotint Rembrandt never engraved in mezzotint, but he
sometimes, in printing- a plate, left ink on its surface so as to
give a certain richness which bears some resemblance to
mezzotint; and the maniire noire of the French writers
refers, in the case of Rembrandt, simply to this way of
printing.
It is not always easy to say positively of small portions
of Rembrandt's work, whether it was done with the etching-
needle or the dry-point ; and this proves an extraordinary
mastery of the latter instrument, which in less skilful hands
cannot approach the freedom of the needle. In these cases
the way to ascertain the fact is by reference to the earliest
proofs, before Rembrandt had removed his bur.
The criticism most interesting to general readers is that
which refers to mental rather than technical characteristics,
and it would be wrong not to attempt some estimate of
Rembrandt as a mind studying nature and humanity. He
was a robust genius, with keen powers of observation, but
little delicacy or tenderness of sentiment, and he lacked the
feminine element which is said to be necessary to poets. He
understood certain classes of men quite thoroughly, and
drew them with the utmost perspicacity — men with whom
his robust nature had sympathy. He had an extraordinary
apprehension of natural dignity and majesty, proving thereby
the true grandeur of his own mind, for it is only minds of a
very high order that see the grandeur of men who enjoy
little worldly rank and consideration. ' Rembrandt had little
sensitiveness, it seems, as regards the delicate beauty of
young women, but he understood — and this is rarer — the
78 REMBRANDT
venerableness of some old ones. He drew a great many
Biblical subjects, and a few very immoral ones ; whether he
was religious or not is uncertain ; it is possible that he may
have availed himself of the Bible as a convenient repertory
of material, full of fine artistic suggestion, and having the
advantage of being universally known. On the other hand,
though there is undeniable licentiousness in some of his
etchings, his mind does not seem to have dwelt much upon
subjects of that kind, and he took them probably merely
because they came in his way, as incidents of human life — a
state of feeling which the scrupulous reticence of our age
may easily misinterpret. He cared very little for beauty
and grace, despised prettiness, calmly tolerated all manner
of hideousness, and admired nothing so much as a certain
stern and manly grandeur, resulting from the combination
of habits of reflection and much experience of the world.
The doctrine that great artists are the product of the
circumstances that surround them, has been so much insisted
upon of late, that the reader will easily see the applicability
of it to Rembrandt as an etcher. The visible marks of
character in the men he knew were so strongly traced, and
their whole aspect so available for his purpose, that he had
the advantage of continual study, even in the common inter-
course of life. A Londoner in the nineteenth century misses
this, unless he is a caricaturist, for the activity of modern
existence is destructive of the kind of dignity which Rem-
brandt loved, and our costume is not compatible with any
true grandeur of demeanour. A still worse evil than our
fidgetty activity and mean costume, is the want of clear
individuality in our faces : we are trained in the repression
of all visible feeling beyond a small range of polite and
exceedingly mild emotions, so that our joy never gets beyond
a smile of quiet satisfaction, nor may our sorrows command
more than a gentle expression of regret But Rembrandt
lived in a time when people bore upon their faces a frank
REMBRANDT. 79
record, not only of recent feeling, but of all the intensity of
the feelings which had moved the muscles and moulded the
physiognomy during the whole course of their lives, and he
took the greatest delight in studying living records of this
kind. The human interest of his work is, therefore, exceed-
ingly great; and his portraits, especially, become for us
living acquaintances. The same intensity of individual
character is carried through his ideal subjects, and his imagi-
nation does not rest satisfied with anything less than personal
knowledge of every individual man and woman in his etchings,
even though of minor consequence in the action.
The reader who has not yet studied Rembrandt system-
atically, but wishes to do so, may conveniently prepare himself
for the etchings themselves, by making himself familiar with
the photographs from them, and with the Catalogue of
Charles Blanc, which is illustrated by forty plates of Flameng,
the most spirited copies of etchings ever executed in such a
considerable quantity, and with sustained excellence.
Since Rembrandt was a productive etcher, it is wise to
divide his work into classes, according to subject, and this
has been done for us already by M. Charles Blanc. From
these classes the student may select representative examples.
Those described below are sufficient to give a very clear idea
of the genius of Rembrandt in its full variety of expression.
As the reader has just been recommended to avail himself
of the assistance of photographs and copies, it may be well
to say a few words as to their especial utility.
A photograph never fairly represents an etching, and is
never, in any sense, a substitute for the original plate ; but
the forms are retained, though the brilliant quality of the
work is in a great measure lost ; and a set of photographs
serve to remind us of the plates themselves, or to prepare us
for the study of the originals, by making us at least familiar
with their subjects and composition. The value of photo-
graphy has been forced upon the writer's attention with
8o REMBRANDT.
especial effect, because it was at one time proposed to illus-
trate this volume by means of photographs from the great
etchers,but the quality of photographic reproductions generally
was found so unreliable as to technical merits, that the plan
was finally abandoned.* When the photograph from an
etching is placed side by side with the original, it is found
wanting in clearness and purity of line ; the lines occasionally
fail where most delicate, and passages of close but still open
shading are represented by something like a washed or blotted
tint On the other hand, no etched copy is to be absolutely
relied upon, though some very wonderful imitations exist —
imitations whose Chinese fidelity deceives all but the most
accomplished connoisseurs. Notwithstanding these defects
photographs and etched copies may, however, be accepted
for what they are worth, and used, not as substitutes for the
originals, which should be studied in preference whenever the
opportunity occurs, but as reminders and records. Flameng's
copies are marvellous for their spirit and truth, and may be
recommended as interpretations of the mind of RembrandLt
It is not necessary to repeat here what is known of
Rembrandt's life ; the reader will find details in M. Blanc's
biography which will interest him, but our knowledge of
Rembrandt's existence is not very complete. It is certain
that he was passionately fond of art, and an eager collector,
being willing to buy art as well as to sell it. He had a
keen knowledge of human nature, and knew how to catch
connoisseurs by the bait of rarity, making different states
* Etchings are now reproduced by the " Heliogravure Amand-Durand," with
a wonderful yet not quite absolutely perfect fidelity. The plate in his process is
really etched, whilst photography ensures its accuracy in the direction of the lines.
+ Here is the title of M. Blanc's Catalogue of Rembrandt's works with
Flameng's illustrations : —
" L'CEuvre complet de Rembrandt, decrit et commentc par M. Charles Blanc,
ancien Directeur des Beaux- Arts. Catalogue raisonne de toutes les Eaux-fortes
du MaStre et de ses Peintures, ome de Bois graves et de quarante Eaux-fortes
tirees k part et rapportees dans le texte. 2 vols. Paris : L. Gucrin, editeur.
Dcp6t et vente \ la librairie Theodora Morgand, 5, rue Bonaparte."
REMBRANDT. 8i
of plates on purpose to gratify them in this respect. It
appears to be positively known that he had a printing-press
in his own studio, and took proofs with his own hands, as
every true etcher ought to do.
The value of his etchings has increased greatly since his
death, and never more than during the last few years. A
single copy of his whole work could not be brought together
for less than twelve or fourteen thousand pounds — even
supposing the possibility of making a complete collection.
The plate of " Christ healing the Sick " was called the
Hundred Guilder Print, because Rembrandt sold a copy of
it for that sum. At M. de Burgy's sale, in Amsterdam, in
175s, an impression, in the first state, before the diagonal
lines on the neck of the ass, sold for 84 guilders {£^)'
This afterwards became the property of Mr. Barnard, at
whose sale (London, 1798) it was bought by Mr. G. Hibbert
for;£'33 : I : 6. Mr. Hibbert's collection was sold in 1809,
and Mr. Esdaile bought this impression for £/^ 1:7:6.
When Mr. Esdaile's collection, in its turn, came to the
hammer, this impression fetched £2'^\y Mr. Holford being
the purchaser. Another impression was bought by Mr.
Smith, at Baron Verstolk's sale, in Amsterdam, 1847, for
less than ;^ 140, and sold, not long ago, at Mr. Charles Price's
sale, to Mr. Palmer, for ;^ii8o. An impression in the
usual state was sold at Mr. Carew's sale, in 1 8 3 5 , for ;^ 1 6 : i os. ;
at M. Debois's sale, in Paris, 1844, for ;£"! 12 ; and at that
of Mr. Johnson (London, i860) iox £\6o.
One of the best instances, of the money-value which
attaches to mere curiosity, quite independently of art, is
Rembrandt's " Sleeping Dog." He originally etched this in
one corner of a plate measuring about four inches and a
quarter wide by two and a half high, and afterwards cut it
down to three and a quarter wide by one and a half high.
Only one impression, in the first state, is known, which sold
at Mr. Hibbert's sale, in 1809, for £\ : los. The Duke of
G
82 REMBRANDT.
Buckingham subsequently obtained it for £6\ and at his
sale, in 1834, it brought ^^61. In 1841 the British Museum
gave ;^ 1 20 for it. The difference between this copy and
an ordinary one is exactly six square inches of white paper,
so that the British Museum actually gave a little under
twenty pounds per square inch for some blank paper which
Rembrandt considered injurious to his etching, since he
diminished the size of the copper. The essential point, as a
matter of curiosity, was that this white paper should be ivithin
the plate-mark. This may be taken as a typical example of
that purchasing for curiosity which is so distinct from the
love of art. If the size of the copper had been beneficial to
the etching, Rembrandt would not have reduced it Artisti-
cally, therefore, in Rembrandt's opinion, the needlessly large
copper was a defect, and the first state not the best But,
in questions of price, curiosity always influences more than
art, and an artistic defect will be extravagantly paid for, if
only it is a proof of rarity ; especially if, as in this instance,
it is connected with some odd circumstance, of a character
sufficiently trivial to awaken the interest of persons w^hose
love of art is languid.
SACRED SUBJECTS.
Hagar dismissed by Abraham (Blanc, 3 ; Bartsch, 30 ;
Claussin, 37 ; Wilson, 37). — The references to the regular
catalogues will save the space that would be occupied by
descriptions, and allow us to devote the whole of these pages
to pure criticism.
This is one of the most perfectly delicate of all Rem-
brandt's etchings. The sureness of the faint thin lines on
which the expression of the faces chiefly depends, the
masterly reservation of reflections and half-lights in open
shading, the opportune omission of labour where omission
was better than toil, justify our admiration. Observe the
REMBRANDT. 83
thoroughly characteristic drawing of Sarah's old hands and
grimly satisfied face ; the strokes are so few that you may
count them, and so thin that it needs clear sight even to see
them. The face of Abraham is just as good, and the beard
is indicated with a dozen strokes towards the edge of it, the
rest being left to the imagination.
Abrahams Sacrifice (Blanc, 6; Bartsch, 35; Claussin,
36 ; Wilson, 39). — Independently of its very fine composi-
tion, and the magnificent style in the drawing of Abraham
and the angel, this plate may be especially recommended as
a fine example of the free etched line, which is everywhere
perfectly frank and full of vital energy.
Jacob and Laban, sometimes called Three Oriental
Figures (Blanc, 7; Bartsch, 118; Claussin, 120; Wilson,
122). — This is one of those plates of Rembrandt, more
numerous than is generally supposed, of which the original
coppers still exist. The fact is that a considerable number
of Rembrandt's original coppers are still in material exist-
ence, though the greater part of them have been so much
deteriorated by wear, and so injured by retouchings and
rebitings, as to be artistically valueless. The most delicate
plates have, of course, suffered most. In this plate of
" Jacob and Laban," the only part which has suffered serious
injury is the black shade in the doorway, which is con-
siderably paler than in the earliest impressions. Close lines
always give way soonest in the printing, and a modern
crcvi can scarcely be trusted, if not steeled, up to a hundred
copies ; but when the lines are kept well apart, and not too
shallow, they will yield large editions without material in-
jury. All tht poptiiar plates of Rembrandt which still exist
are now in the most advanced state of consumption ; they
are even more unsubstantial than that, they are ghosts.
The Presentation in the TVw//^ (Blanc, 23 ; Bartsch, 50;
Claussin, 54; Wilson, 55). — There are three " Presentations
in the Temple," but this may be easily known as the larger,
84 REMBRANDT.
upright one ; it is further distinguished by the French critics
as the one en manitre noirc^ by which they mean that the
plate has been heavily inked. The brilliancy of the sacer-
dotal vestments is rendered here with a power so extraordi-
nary, that the plate is a great technical feat. The lines are
coarse and rude, but so entirely synthetic and intelligent in
their arrangement, that the splendour of gold, and jewels,
and embroidery, is fully suggested to the imagination,
The high priest, who is standing, is one of the most im-
posing figures amongst all the creations of Rembrandt,
who had a keen appreciation of sacerdotal dignity and
magnificence.
Repose in Egypt (Blanc, 31 ; Bartsch, 58; Claussin, 62 ;
Wilson, 63). — This plate is so very slightly bitten as to be
exceedingly pale, but M. Charles Blanc believes that this
feebleness was intentional. Great artists, in their designs,
have often drawn whole pages of such extreme delicacy and
paleness that their work is half invisible, and its finest pass-
ages to be apprehended by the imagination alone. It is a
kind of artistic caprice, like the faint playing of a musician
when he imitates music in the remote distance. A plate in
this condition is in a very good state to be carried forward
in pure dry-point.
Jesus Christ preaching (Blanc, 39 ; Bartsch, 6^ \ Claussin,
71 ; Wilson, 71). — One of the finest of Rembrandt's sacred
subjects, and, in its original state, one of the most simple in
execution. The copper belonged to Norblin, the engraver,
who laboriously retouched it. At Norblin's death it was sold
to Mr. Colnaghi. As an example of genuine etcher's work
an early impression is unexceptionable.
The Return of the Prodigal Son (Blanc, 43 ; Bartsch, 91 ;
Claussin, 95 , Wilson, 96). — Here again is one of the exist-
ing coppers, remarkable chiefly for the frightful hideousness
of the principal figures. Rembrandt may have desired to
indicate that the unfortunate youth had become swinish
REMBRANDT. 85
from companionship with swine, but surely there could be
no especial reason for the ugliness of his father. There is,
however, much dramatic truth, and even some tenderness, in
the arrangement of the group.
Christ healing the Sick (Blanc, 49 ; Bartsch, 74 ; Claussin,
78 ; Wilson, 78). — This is the famous etching known as
'The Hundred Guilder Print," and of which a single impres-
sion has been sold for the enormous sum of ;£'i 180. There
are several other plates by Rembrandt at least equal to this
in artistic quality, but from its large dimensions and the
delicacy of its finish, as well as the impressiveness of the
subject, and the force with which the scene is realised, " The
Hundred-Guilder Print '' is usually considered the most im-
portant work of the master; and the unprecedented sum
which has been lately given for it will only tend to confirm
the supremacy of its position. No etching was ever better
finished, as true etchers understand finish. The labour is
by no means equal throughout, but is skilfully expended
where most required, and economised where it could only
have interfered with the concentration of the thought. The
realism that pervades all that Rembrandt ever did, does not
even here give place to any vain attempt at style, and yet
the work has style of its own kind, though not in the narrow
classical sense. The subject is one with which we have been
rendered too familiar, by many artists, for it to exercise its
full power on the imagination ; and it requires great effort
in the modern mind, detached as it is from the idea of the
miraculous, to realise the actual presence of a teacher who
could enforce his doctrine by relieving his hearers from their
heaviest personal calamities. We must try, however, to
sympathise with their eager hope and grateful rejoicing, if we
would understand the expression on all these expectant
faces.
There is a good deal of dry-point work, and towards
the left Rembrandt took care to remove the bur, which
86 REMBRANDT.
destroyed the balance of the chiaroscuro. The market
value of an impression in the first state, before Rembrandt
had improved and completed the plate, is, of course, much
greater than that of a perfect copy, Rembrandt's opinion
being held of slight importance by connoisscurship, in com-
parison with the merit of rarity and the evidence of an early
impression. There is a curious logical fallacy involved in
the anxiety for evidence that an impression is an early one.
Why are early impressions valued especially at all } Because
they are supposed to be of better quality than later ones.
But if quality is the object, what is the necessity for evidence ?
Is not quality its own evidence } Connoisscurship first seeks
early impressions for their quality, and then distrusts its own
judgment as to the very thing it seeks, and so is obliged to
look for marks by which an early impression may be known.
For instance, in the case of this very etching, connoisseurs
tell the first state by the absence of certain diagonal lines
on the neck of the ass.
Descent from the Cross by Torchlight (Blanc, 5 8 ; Bartsch,
83 ; Claussin, 87; Wilson, 88). — Although the great "De-
scent from the Cross " is much more generally known, and
may be considered, in a certain sense, more sublime, I have
an especial liking for this ; the work is so right and manly,
and the composition so natural and yet so full of art. The
way in which the sheet is thrown upon the bier, and the
masculine indications of its folds, are a lesson for our modern
etchers. If the value of such work as this had been rightly
understood by the modern English and Germans, they would
have avoided half their errors.
The three Crosses (Blanc, 53; Bartsch, 78; Claussin,
81 ; Wilson, 81). — In the short chapters of the First Book,
I spoke of frankness and passion as necessary elements in
great etching, and of speed as a quality in itself desirable,
when not obtained at the cost of necessary modulations in
line. This etching of " The Three Crosses" is, of all Rem-
REMBRANDT. 87
brandt's important plates, the most passionate, the most
frank, and the most swift Large as it is, the composition
is nothing more — or, would it not be better to say that it is
nothing less ?— than a rapid memorandum of a true vision ;
one of those visions seen only by men of great imaginative
endowments. So far as we may presume to speculate on the
operation of these mysterious and rare powers, we may infer,
from the extraordinary energy of the manipulation and abso-
lute disdain of popular requirements, that the one object of
Rembrandt in taking this great copper was to fix his vision
for ever, without regard to anything but the sublime verity of
the transcript. The plate afterwards underwent very rough
treatment at his hands ; much of the early work was effaced,
and several afterthoughts were added ; which changes of in-
tention only serve to prove the ungovernable ardour of the
first inspired and passionate hour. Rembrandt was in the
habit of keeping coppers by him ready varnished, and I
have little doubt that in this instance the plate was ready
to his hand when the light from heaven came. Many a
reader may have lost patience with me when I occupied
whole pages with purely technical considerations, but the
entire value of this magnificent plate depends upon a techni-
cal facility — the ease and freedom with which the etching-
point glides upon the copper, at any speed and in any
direction. It is certain that if Rembrandt had been set to
record his conception with the burin, he must either have
restrained his passion whilst the slow tool ploughed its pain,
ful way, or renounced his task as hopeless.
The Death of the Virgin (Blanc, 70; Bartsch, 100;
Claussin, 103 ; Wilson, 105). — Every lover of art comes,
in time, to have private predilections which he cannot
always readily account for and explain. Thus, of all the
plates of Rembrandt, "The Death of the Virgin" is the
one that fascinates and moves me most In all the qualities
of art there are at least four of Rembrandt's etchings which
88 REMBRANDT,
fully equal this ; yet not one of them absorbs me so com-
pletely. The solemnity of fast approaching death, the gravity
of the stately high-priest and the calm physician ; the sorrow
of others present, the pale face upon the pillow, and the
helpless hands upon the counterpane, — are elements of a
scene which renews itself too frequently ever to lose its
interest In the upper air of the lofty room, angels wait for
the spirit which the nations will adore as the Queen of
Heaven ; and the scene has a grandeur more than royal, for
it has the sublimity of art. Considered as etching, the work
is so sound and right, so various in degrees of finish, and so
masterly in choice and direction of line, that " The Death of
the Virgin " may be taken as one of the great t3'pical ex-
amples of what etching may be, and ought to be. If the
reader would give half-an-hour to a fine impression of
this plate, he would understand for ever after the painful
and almost indignant feelings with which we hear men de-
preciate etching in the vanity of their superciliousness.
ALLEGORIES AND FANCIES.
Youth surprised by Death (Blanc, 79 ; Bartsch, 1 09 ;
Claussin, iii; Wilson, 113). — The figure of the young
man in this exquisite etching is by far the most elegant of
all Rembrandt's creations ; indeed, perhaps, the only one
which has, in any marked degree, the character of elegance
at all. There is a singular delicacy in the whole of the
plate, very notably in the hair and head-dress of the women.
It has been beautifully. copied by Flameng.
A Lion Hunt (Blanc, 87 ; Bartsch, 1 15 ; Claussin, 117;
Wilson, 119). — A rapid and hasty sketch full of fire and
spirit, and curiously resembling in its peculiar inspiration, the
ideas of Eugene Delacroix.
The Bathers (Blanc, 117; Bartsch, 195 ; Claussin, 192 ;
Wilson, 192). — Of course, no artist is to be judged by his
REMBRANDT. 89
worst productions ; but Rembrandt is so great that he can
well afford to be frankly criticised. He seems to have been
absolutely indifferent to the beauty of the naked figure, but
he never went lower than this in the recording of its
hideousness and degradation. We might compare these
men to gorillas or baboons, but they are more repulsive;
because the ideal of the baboon does not involve the beauti-
ful, whereas the ideal of man reaches to the Apollo Belvedere.
What sort of satisfaction Rembrandt could find in the sketch-
ing of these pitiable objects, is a mystery. They have not
even life enough to enjoy their bath like men, but are as
miserable and shivering as they are shapeless.
THE BEGGARS.
Rembrandt etched about twenty-five subjects of beggars,
several of which are exceedingly felicitous and curiously
picturesque. As the plates of some of these subjects still
exist, they are sold at low prices ; but, although the lines of
one or two that I have examined are certainly Rembrandt's
own lines, they have been apparently rebitten to make them
last longer. Of course, when a plate has been rebitten by
other hands than those of the etcher himself, it can no longer
be considered a strictly original work. The direction of the
lines is what the artist intends it to be, but not their depth.
The reader will find several fine copies of Rembrandt's
" Beggars " in M. Blanc's Catalogue. One of the finest, in
some respects, is No. 145, "Mcndiants, Homme et Femme."
Only two impressions of it are known to exist ; one in the
Cabinet at Paris, the other in the Museum of Amsterdam.
The plate was a failure, and Rembrandt probably destroyed
it ; but though the face of the nearer figure is a blot, and
though the execution generally bears the same relation to
common drawing that the almost illegible manuscript of an
author b|^^^^e rounded pothooks of a schoolboy.
90 REMBRANDT,
still it is very grand work. Another ver>' fine beggar is No.
149, "Gueux i gros Ventre." Observe the masterly eco-
nomy of labour in the cloak and boots ; the boots especially
are splendid examples of fine swift treatment of costume.
ACADEMICAL SUBJECTS.
There are about a dozen etchings of the naked figure by
Rembrandt Some of these are very common, as the plates
belong to M. Bernard, of Paris, who still prints editions of
them. The naked man seated on the ground (Blanc, 160 ;
Ba. 196 ; CI. 193 ; W. 193) is a ver>'' good piece of evidence
as to Rembrandt's matter-of-fact interpretation. It is simple
realism, quite devoid of aspiration. The model was a poor
one, with no form, and Rembrandt seems to have felt no
impatience, but to have copied the bad shapes quite con-
tentedly. He accepted ugliness without repugnance. The
naked woman whose feet are in water (Blanc, 1 64) is an in-
stance of bad form of another kind. The young man had
no form because he was meagre ; this woman has none
because she is fat : both etchings are as repulsive as photo-
graphs of ill-chosen models. And yet these two reasons are
not the ultimate statement of the matter, for there is a lean
ideal and a fat ideal ; there is a leanness which has a
spiritual beauty, and a fulness which has a sensual and
material beauty ; the early Italian painters knew the first,
and Rubens knew the second, but Rembrandt knew neither.
Yet he had an ideal, but we need not look for it in his
studies of the naked figure, lean or fat ; his ideal was not
corporeal, but mental, and is to be found in his best portraits,
and in many personages in his religious subjects, who are as
personal and individual as portraits.
The "Diana at the Bath" (Bl. 165 ; Ba. 201 ; C. 198 ;
W. 198) is little better, in point of form, than the woman
with her feet in the water, but the figure is well poised, and
PLATE I.
THE CORPULENT BEGGAR (GuEux A Gros Ventre;,
After REMBRANDT.
Copied by the Author.
PLATE I.
(To be placetl. opposite pa^e yo.)
The Corpulent Beggar (Gueux a Gros Ventre;.
After Rembrandt.
Copiea by the Author.
BITINGS.
In Dutch Mordant, heated to 90** Fahrenheit
Light scratches in background
Darker lines on edge .>...'
Finer hues on cl<»ak, face, lop of cap, and shadow in liackground
Darkest lines of cloak, boots, and sliadow of boots .
First proof taken, it having been thought unadvisable to carry the
biting to its extreme limit for fear of over-biting. ITie darkest
lines were therefore still somewhat weak, and needed rebiting.
Plate covered for rebiting, but all lines protected . except the
darkest.
Darkest lines bitten 20 minutes more, making their total
Minutes.!
7
12
J**
50
70
In the printing, this plate is well wijied with the canvas only, which
leaves a shght tint of oil. It has then been lightly rctroussce on all the
darkest lines. The face is not ntrousst^Cy nor are the tliin scratchings.
REMBRANDT 91
most admirably drawn, technically. This is by far the finest
of all Rembrandt's naked figures, much finer than the Antiope,
for instance, though the pose of the Antiope is good, if the
forms are not
PORTRAITS.
It appears to be very difficult to etch a good portrait, if
we are to judge by the rarity of successful attempts. There
are scarcely any modern etched portraits worth mentioning,
and very few older ones, except those of Rembrandt and
Vandyke. Rembrandt owed something of his success in
portraits to constant practice on the best of all models —
himself He etched his own portrait more than thirty times
over, in various dresses — an amount of egotism for which any
modem etcher would incur the most severe reprobation of
reviewers. He had a picturesque physiognomy, and was as
good a subject as any he was likely to find ; nor have we
the right to blame an egotism which, in his case, was purely
artistic, and very far removed from any vulgar sentiment of
vanity. Rembrandt knew that he was a good subject, and
found that in this instance the model readily complied with
the requirements of the artist ; so he often sat for hours
before his looking-glass, and etched the keen, plain visage he
saw in it He etched his old mother seven or eight times,
and his wife half as often : the old woman had a capital face,
and her illustrious son, then young and obscure, drew it with
the utmost intelligence and affection. His early portrait of
her (Bl. 193 ; Ba. 354 ; C^ 343 ; W. 348) is one of the most
perfect of all his works. He was twenty -two years old then,
and already a great master-etcher. One might expatiate
long on the firm and exquisite truth with which the wrinkled
face has been studied, and yet the wrinkles are not mapped
out in a servile Denner-like manner, but always largely
interpreted with reference to expression and anatomy. See
how they are accentuated on the temple as it passes into the
92 REMBRANDT
shade ; how tlie reflected lights are kept clear under the chin,
where they have scarcely a perceptible breadth ; how the few
thin hairs are drawn with their wave of curl ; how the half
extinguished eye retains its remnant of calm light; how the
placid lips, full of experience and quiet capacity of irony,
meet in their sage reserve ! There is another very fine
portrait of the same old lady (Bl. 196 ; Ba. 345 ; C 333 ;
W. 339), an extraordinary tour de force in the rendering of
an old woman's face, and technically remarkable for its
translation of various local values of black in the veil and
dress. Of Rembrandt's portraits of himself, two may be
especially mentioned, — the " Rembrandt with the Sabre and
Aigrette" (Bl. 232; Ba. 23 ; C. 23 ; W. 23), and "Rem-
brandt appuy6" (Bl. 234; Ba. 21 ; C. 21 ; W. 21). The
first of these two portraits gives us Rembrandt in his charac-
ter of a lover of strange and picturesque costumes, of which
he had a considerable collection ; the other represents him,
very probably, in the dress he usually wore, and is that from
which most of us derive our idea of his person. He lived in
an age when a man might dress picturesquely without being
hooted or laughed at, and so indulged his artistic instincts
very freely. No more picturesque scene can be imagined
than the interior of Rembrandt's house, full of all things
that his eyes desired : of arms, and carving, and porcelain,
of rare tissues, of statues and busts, of pictures, of quaint
furniture, of tapestries, and animals and plants, of spoils of
earth and sea. In the midst of all these things sat that
illustrious and immortal genius — sat, as we see him in this
portrait, himself not less picturesque than the things around
him, a masculine and robust man, knowing the aspects of
life, and scrutinising all things with those sharp, penetrating
eyes. What interested him most in the living world around
him was neither the loveliness of women, nor the grace of in-
fancy, but the thoughtful faces of mature and intelligent men.
Thus he drew Cornelius Ansloo, a celebrated preacher of tliose
PLATE II.
PORTRAIT OF OLD MOTHER,
By REMBRANDT.
Copied by tlie Author.
PLATE II.
(To be placed opposite page 92.)
Portrait of Old Mother, by Rembrandt.
Copied by the Autlior.
BITINGS.
In Dutch Mordant, heated to go** Fahrenheit
Palest lines at roots of hair, on forehead, behind head, at lower right
hand comer, etc. . . ' .
Darker touches on wrinkles, thin dark lines elsewhere, hair, etc
Other dark but thin lines . . * . .
Darkest lines .......
Minutes.
5
15
30
45
First proof taken.
Plate covered again with black ground, and a number of lines and
touches which had been omitted now drawn in their places, and bitten in
the same proportion as above.
Second proof taken. Some lines and touches reduced with the scraper,
others deepened with the burin.
In printing, this plate is wiped with canvas only, and not rdrotissh.
REMBRANDT. 93
days ; Asselyn, a painter of reputation ; Ephraim Bonus, a
physician ; Clement de Jonghe, a famous publisher of prints ;
Janus Lutma, a well-known goldsmith ; the Burgomaster
Six, and other personages, in almost every instance remark-
able for an appearance of strong understanding or venerable
dignity which compels us to remember and respect them. It
may have been a subtle flattery on the part of Rembrandt
to give to his sitters a wise and meditative look, as other
portraitists add beauty to the features, and dissimulate
physical defects ; but there was a sturdy frankness in Rem-
brandt's nature which inclines us rather to the belief that he
would not have condescended even to this delicate species
of flattery, and that there existed in his models, at least, a
strong suggestion of the qualities he attributed to them.
The one rare merit of these portraits is that they never seem
to lay traps for our admiration, and have no anxiety to
please. The Burgomaster Six is reading quietly at his win-
dow, without a thought of the world beyond; Ephraim
Bonus is thinking not of us, but of the patient whom he has
just left upstairs ; Uytenbogaert, the gold-weigher, is entirely
absorbed in his accounts. The difference between these por-
traits and too many modern ones is, that these have dignity
without pretension, whereas the others have pretension with-
out dignity. The execution is sometimes exceedingly mar-
vellous, as, for instance, the modelling of the gold-weigher's
face, the moustache and imperial of old Haaring, and the
eyebrow of Janus Lutma. Whenever the hands are given,
as in the lesser Coppenol, the Ansloo, and the Lutma, they
are drawn in a simple and direct way, but with singular
attention to the character and constitution of the man.
Whilst oa the subject of execution, we cannot omit to men-
tion the remarkable silvery beard worn by a nameless old
man with a fur cap. It is nearly all done by suggestion
and omission, but the fulness and softness of it are perfectly
expressed. There is an art very useful to etchers, by which
94 REMBRANDT.
the imagination of the spectator is made to do half the
work ; Rembrandt understood this, and often had recourse
to it with much cunning. By telling you what the hairs are
like on the left side of the beard, he makes you believe that
you see hairs on the right, though in reality he gives you
nothing there but a space of blank paper.
LANDSCAPES.
Though Rembrandt's draughtsmanship in the figure was
often incorrect as to proportion, it was always scientific and
based upon anatomical studies, which we know to have been
amongst the artist's valued and beloved pursuits. But he
did not draw animals so well as men, nor trees so well as
animals, and was, in short, much less scientific as a landscape-
painter than as a master of the figure. We all know how
the study of landscape has lingered behind the study of the
human body ; but, because many of the old masters brought
to the execution of landscape-subjects that grand and govern-
ing manner which they had learned in another branch of art,
and because they could, at least, express their sentiment,
which was often noble and just, it has resulted that their
reputation is considerable, notwithstanding the limitations of
their knowledge, and that, even in these days of more accurate
research and keener interest in the facts of the external world,
these old masters still hold their ground against the rivalry
of the most cultivated modems. Thus Rembrandt's manner
in landscape is better than that of any modern, except Turner
and Haden; and our skilful English landscape-painters,
notwithstanding their far greater knowledge of the various
effects of nature, have a littleness of expression with the
etching-needle which places them in a lower rank as artists.
This is the distinction which connoisseurs universally feel,
and which makes tlicm often unjust towards the moderns,
and blind to their especial superiorities. I have not space
REMBRANDT, 95
to enter into the difficult question of what constitutes greatness
of style, but may say that Rembrandt had it, that Claude
had it in another way, and that the success of Haden was
mainly due to the possession of it
Rembrandt etched about thirty landscapes of various
degrees of finish. The slightest and most rapid of them all
is the " Bridge of Six," of which Gersaint tells the following
story : — Rembrandt used to visit his friend, the Burgomaster,
at his country-house, and one day, dinner being served, behold
there was no mustard ! The Burgomaster sent his servant
into the village to get some, and Rembrandt made a bet
that, before the mustard was placed on the table, he
would etch a plate. He etched this bridge, which was
visible from the dining-room window. The point of interest
in this anecdote is that Rembrandt took a plate which was
already grounded, and that he had several with him so pre-
pared. An etcher ought always to have plates ready, because
the trouble of grounding one may often prevent him from
seizing a good opportunity. Another point proved by the
story, is that Rembrandt etched from nature directly, not,
perhaps, as a general rule, but at least that he had no objec-
tion to the practice. The " Bridge of Six " is a rapid and
slight sketch of no especial merit or interest
The reader will find, amongst the landscapes of Rembrandt,
several very fine examples of the use of the dry-point. One
of the finest is the " Landscape with the three Cottages " (BL
3 1 8), in which the bur is used with great power, though with
an exaggeration of blackness. The same power, with the
same exaggeration of rich blacks, may be found in other
plates, especially in the "Bouquet de Bois" (Bl. 323), which
is entirely engraved in dry-point The " Landscape with the
Tower " and the " Landscape with the Square Tower "(Nos.
324 and 319, in Blanc's Catalogue (are inspired by a very
true landscape sentiment, and remain always in the memory
The " View of Omval " (Bl. 3 1 2) and the " Cottage with the
96 REMBRANDT.
Great Tree" (Bl. 326), are, perhaps, the finest examples of
Rembrandt's masterly use of the needle in pure etching.
The distances in both plates are remarkable for ease and
simplicity of manner.
It is always, however, a mistake to attribute too much
importance to manual skill in etching, or in any other of the
great arts. When there is the true understanding of nature,
and the true artistic sentiment, manual skill usually comes
with practice, and the greatest artists never trouble themselves
about it, warning their pupils against anxiety on that score.
The distinction between the possession of manual skill and
artistic genius is perfectly illustrated in the case of Flameng,
the engraver who etched the wonderful copies from Rem-
brandt in M. Blanc's Catalogue. I have no hesitation in
saying that, in manual skill, Flameng is equal to Rembrandt,*
or to any etcher who ever lived ; and yet, in the first edition
of this work, I did not think it necessary to mention Flameng
amongst modern etchers, whilst I gave an entire chapter to
Daubigny, who is clumsiness itself (or was, at that time) in
comparison with him. If Rembrandt had no higher claim
on our consideration than mechanical ability with the point,
he would not deserve mention in the records of an art whose
glory is to spring directly from the mind.
* This assertion, bold as it may seem, was fully confirmed later by the publi-
cation of Flameng*s copy, in facsimile, of the famous Hundred-Guilder print, a
copy which in all technical qualities is simply equal to the original. Flameng has
*
his due place in this edition amongst the etchers who interpret the works of
painters.
CHAPTER III.
OSTADE AND BEGA.
T^HE repugnance which a refined modern gentleman, full
of scholarly ideas and delicate sympathies, feels for the
sort of humanity in which Ostade delighted, is strong enough
in many instances to counterbalance all the technical qualities
of the artist, and permanently repel the student. Ostade is
not the only painter who has studied the habits of the
peasantry : we have just seen that Rembrandt had a predilec-
tion for beggars, and the cottages of poor French farmers and
labourers have, during the last few years, been the favourite
studies of a class of painters by no means wanting in refine-
ment, whose representative is Edouard Frfere. Poverty is not
a disqualification in the living subjects of a picture, and it is
probable that the most refined artists, if obliged to choose
between the interior of a rich tradesman's dining-room, or
the interior of a Highland bothy, or a chaumihre in the
Morvan, would prefer the rough floor, and rude furniture, and
simple inhabitants, to the carpets and mahogany, with their
living accompaniments in broadcloth and fine silk. The
poor do not repel us in Faed, or Frfere, or Duverger, but
they are very repulsive in Ostade and Bega, — so repulsive
that we only endure them for the sake of the accomplished
art
In justice to ourselves, let us say that it is not the poverty
which repels us, but the insensitiveness of the painter to all
that is best amongst the poor : his incapacity to recognise the
true refinement of the rare and delicate natures which are dis-
H
98 OSTADE AND BEGA,
guised in mean apparel, his blindness to that beauty of charac-
ter and countenance which is not aided by the arts of luxury.
It is not to be believed that when Ostade and Bega studied
the Dutch peasantry, the whole of the poor population of
Holland was lost in bestiality, or that all the nobler feelings
of human nature were utterly crushed out of it by the weight
of care, like the juice from trodden grapes. And yet their
peasants are universally mere animals, incapable of tenderness
and thought, capable only of instinctive cares and besotted
sensuality. The males pursue the females, the females give
suck to their young, and the height of satisfaction is a
swinish contentment in the fulness of the belly and the
apathy of the brain.
But, though on the human side there is nothing in this
class of art to delight a modern public, it has often technical
merits of a rare order. Ostade, especially, was a composer
of remarkable ability, combining in the most felicitous way
the two compositions of form and chiaroscuro. He was
very inferior to Rembrandt in the variety of his execution.
Rembrandt had many resources of method which were inac-
cessible to Ostade ; but Ostade had always craft sufficient
for his purpose, and could reach with great certainty the
effects of light, the transparencies, the accentuations which
gave him pleasure. It would be an interesting subject for
speculation how an artistic accomplishment, which in its way
certainly proves much visual and manual cultivation, was
compatible with such deadness of the heart and such apathy
of the intellect. Cases of this kind seem to prove that
technical skill in the fine arts is possible without mental eleva-
tion, but they do not demonstrate the vanity of artistic culture
generally. It was something for Ostade that he could at
least see when his peasants composed well, and that he could
enjoy the lights and shadows which gave a sort of sublimity
to their habitations. An accomplishment may be worth
having, without working the miracle of giving nobility to a
OSTADE AND BEGA. 99
low nature, and we do not despise the classical languages
and theology because they were the accomplishments of
Dean Swift. The truth is, that not only artistic learning and
skill, but all kinds of learning and skill, may be attained
without much advance towards nobleness ; yet this does not
prove them to be without a utility of their own. It is a fine
thing to etch well, or read Greek well, or perform the sword
exercise well, independently of moral results ; and the sort
of praise due to Ostade is that which may be justly accorded
to those who excel in their particular craft.
Bega had a still lower nature than Ostade himself, and,
though forcible and clever, had not even that kind of refine-
ment which Ostade possessed. There is nothing of Bfega's
comparable to Ostade's " Family " for delicacy of the artistic
kind ; but as he was certainly a true etcher, though of a de-
graded school, it seemed right to mention him in this book.
The observations on Ostade's coarse interpretation of peasant-
life apply in their full force to Bega.
Early states of Ostade's etchings are now of great value,
and have risen much in the market during the last twenty
years. In 1838, Mr. Wilson's set was sold for ;£'i05. Mr.
Siguier afterwards gave jfi'iSQ : 12s. for the same set, which
was sold again in 1844 for £z^9 • ^Ss* and again in 1846
for ;^500. It is now worth a thousand guineas, ten times
its value twenty years ago.
Ostade. La Famille (Bartsch, i. 378, 46). — The reader
would do well, when he has the opportunity, to refer to the
proof in the British Museum, on page 54 of the first volume
of the Ostade Collection. It is the most perfect work of the
master, and quite remarkable for lighting and composition.
Ostade's sense of what was necessary to the support of a
group, is like the artistic instinct which led the Gothic
builders to use buttresses and low chapels round their edifices,
and which in nature gives artistic value to the slopes of debris
loo OSTADE AXD BEGA,
at the feet of mountains. For example, in this etching the
composition rises always towards the right, and is buttressed
by slopes to the left See how amply the figure of the man
is supported by the boy and the dog, and by the seated
woman. This law of diminution to the left is carried out in
the most trifling accessaries, in the basins above the door, in
the spaces between the three cross-pieces nailed to the beams,
in the tu'o boards near the ladder, in the openings of the bed
and the door. If the woman had adx'anced her left foot in-
stead of her right, the man behind her would not have been
so well supported ; and if the little dog had been absent, the
buttressing on that side would not have been continued to
the gpround. The lighting is, of course, intended to give im-
portance to the g^oup ; there are admirable reflections and
transparencies in the shade.
Of Ostade s small plates, the reader is recommended to
study (for their directness of manner) the^ bust of an old
peasant with a pointed cap, and the smoker in an oval. The
"Hurdy-gurdy Player" (dated 1647) is a curious instance of
careful rendering of the folds of dress.
Some of Ostade's original coppers exist in Paris, but they
are so worn that impressions are now worthless.
Bega. Le Cabaret (Bartsch, v. 240, 35). — A group of
peasants in an ale-house, with a ver>' dark shading behind
the figures; a brilliant and effective plate, but coarse in
conception, and wanting in the artistic subtleties that dis-
tinguish the masterpiece of Ostade,
Bega's common fault of too much blackness in shadows
is equally visible in a clever little figure with a short cloak,
" L'Homme avec la Main dans le Pourpoint " (Bartsch, v. 22S.
I o). The most delicate bit of work by Bega is the woman
in the lozenge, " La Femme portant la Cruche " (Bartsch, v
228, 9). The dress is ver>' cleverly accentuated.
PLATE III.
PEASANTS DRINKING, By Ostade,
A portion of a larger Plate representing a Village Feast.
Copied by tlte Author,
PLATE III.
(To he placed opposite page lOO.)
Peasants Drinking, by Ostade, a portion of a larger
Plate representing a Village Feast
Copied by iJu Author,
BITINGS.
In Dutch Mordant, heated to. 90'' Fahrenheit
Light shade on flag
Lightest parts of tree .
Distant tree ....
Other ti^ee, cottages, and distant figures
Foreground figures
Foreground ....
Minutes.
5
10
25
35
SO
70
First proof taken.
Plate covered again with black ground, and many lines drawn which had
been overlooked in the first drawing. These were bitten like their neigh-
bours as above. A light shade was also added here and there over lines
already bitten, and this was bitten from five to ten minutes.
The plate was finished with a little light dry-point work here and there,
and a few touches with the burin.
Plate wiped with the hand in printing. The immediate fon^ound
rdroussi.
■?^PR^%'
CHAPTER IV.
BERGHEM, POTTER, DUJARDIN.
T^HE great industry of Berghem, and his accurate know-
ledge of cattle, give him a certain firmness and pre-
cision with the point which are amongst the chief reasons
for his reputation as an etcher. Nothing tends more to the
popularity of an artist than a neat and clear manner, as free
as possible from those vague seekings after excellence which
are the marks of advance and aspiration ; yet this very neat-
ness is a quality which the higher criticism regards with
dubious approval, because, though it proves the attainment
of skill, it fixes the limitation of effort, and too frequently
implies the abandonment of noble aims. Berghem and
Verboeckhoven have this neatness, but Turner and Troyon
have none of it ; and our suspicions as to the value of the
quality are fully confirmed by a comparison of these artists.
Berghem had a kind of elegance often rather out of place in
the subjects he chose, and his shepherds and shepherdesses
attitudinise with airs and graces that belong rather to the
rustics of Florian than to those of the actual world. His
shadows were exceedingly transparent, and his reflections
bright ; he had the art of using emphasis well (with a view
to the kind of result he aimed at) and he had absolute
manual skill. But I cannot consider him a great etcher, and
should rank him as nearly as possible on the same level
with the modern Gauermann.
One has a natural tenderness for Paul Potter, because
he died so early (at twenty-nine), and produced such clever
I02 BERGHEM, POTTER, DUJARDIN.
pictures. He had clear sight, a firm hand, a most excellent
memory ; but no imagination, and very little power of com-
position. No painter who ever lived retained a more vivid
image of an animal after having seen it, nor could any painter
copy that image better. But his art was never much more
than a very brilliant copyism of facts, though since these
facts were usually of a nature which the memory alone could
enable him to record, his art is on that account more wonder-
ful than the patient literalism which copies a helmet or a vase.
Paul Potter had points of superiority over Berghem in his
entire freedom from false elegance ; he was quite unaffected,
exceedingly clear and accurate in handling, yet not vain of
his precision, nor at all anxious to display it. He etched
with spirit, but was deficient in freedom, and did not sketch,
nor see things with the comprehensiveness of a great sketcher
like Rembrandt. I admire his power of memory, his vivacity
and spirit, his genuine love of animals, his knowledge of
animal construction, his certainty of hand ; but consider that
his weakness in comprehensive sketching and want of imagi-
nation disqualify him for a place in the first rank.
Karl Dujardin is one of those artists who, whilst enjoying
a great reputation amongst the class of connoisseurs who
never work from nature, retain slighter hold on our admira-
tion when our judgment has been fortified by much practical
study. He learned his horse by heart, and his cow, and his
sheep, and his pig, and his donkey, and his goat ; and being
able to draw them in a regular manner, and in any common
attitude, set them in fancy landscapes of the kind which con-
noisseurs receive as a sufficient representation of nature.
There is much truth in the attitudes of Dujardin's animals,
and the power of drawing them as he did is by no means to
be attained easily, for it requires great labour and a certain
natural gift ; yet such animal design as his cannot be
accepted as of first-rate excellence, because it is too methodi-
cal, and wanting in artistic synthesis. He is inferior in
BERGHEM, POTTER, DUJARDIN, 103
skill and knowledge to Paul Potter, but nearly of the same
rank in point of artistic conception and imagination, and
quite free from the misplaced elegance which often spoiled
the work of Berghem. He was not a good etcher, because
he could not sketch well ; but his name could not be omitted
in a work on etching, on account of his considerable reputa-
tion. His stiff, precise lines are not to be recommended for
imitation, and his ignorance of landscape was complete. His
merits are a certain knowledge of animals, expressed with
perfect sincerity, and a dexterity sufficient for his purpose.
His lighting is often luminous, but his chiaroscuro was feeble
because he had not the least idea of the value of local colour
when translated into black and white ; and in most of his
etchings local colour is altogether omitted.
A curious instance of purchasing for curiosity occurred in
the case of some animals by Berghem. He etched two sets
of six each, and one of these sets was executed on a single
copper, afterwards divided. Only one impression taken be-
fore the division is now known, and the British Museum paid
;^I20 for it. The present value of that proof is about
;£'400, and its only superiority over good impressions of the
six separate plates is a matter of pure curiosity, depending
upon the not very interesting or important fact, that there
is only one large plate-mark instead of six smaller ones.
Berghem. The Rivulet by the ruined Mofiument, — With-
out elaborate description, the reader may recognise this plate
by the woman who is seated in the foreground, with her left
foot in the water whilst she wipes the right. There are
other figures, and cows, and goats, and sheep. There are
traces of sculpture on the monument, especially the bas-relief
of a horse. This is one of Berghem's most brilliant and
characteristic etchings. The brilliancy is obtained, in a great
measure, by vigorous little bits of dark inserted in places
where the artist had a fair pretext for their introduction.
I04 BERGHEMy POTTER, DUJARDIN,
Plates of this class are usually kept very light, but the etchers
were always on the look-out for such little spots of intense
black as that under the woman's armpit here : when these
were vigorously marked, a certain liveliness was the result.
The student will observe the neat sharp draughtsmanship in
the cattle, and the rather dandified elegance of the cowherd
with the pole, and the woman who is washing her feet
The Piper (Bartsch, v. 257, 4). — ^A man on an ass meets
a pedestrian with a bagpipe, and talks to him, showing him
the way with his hand. Behind the piper is a man driving
sheep and cows. To the right are many trees, and in the
distance a softly-wooded hill. The group in the middle has
a picturesque outline, and is exceedingly rich in shade.
The work in this central group is generally of fine quality,
but there is a somewhat morbid softness, not altogether
masculine, in the distant foliage.
The Shepherd by the Fountain (Bartsch, v. 259, 8). — Of all
Berghem's plates this is the most characteristic of the master.
The figures pose like models who have learned their business
well, but not very like the peasants of actual life. The
animals are all remarkable for an extraordinary clearness and
neatness of execution. Observe especially the head and leg
of the cow in the foreground. The shadows are kept exceed-
ingly transparent, and the reflections light ; the bucket is an
epitome of Berghem's practice in these respects.
The Goat's Head with the black Forehead (Bartsch, v.
267, 19). — A piece of very exquisite execution of its kind,
especially in the horns and the dark hair on the goat's fore-
head. There is also a small plate with two goats' heads
executed with equal skill. Work of this kind approaches
more nearly to modern ideas of etching than that of the old
masters can be generally said to do. It is not unlike
Gauermann in manner, and the best work of the English
Club is of the same class.
BERGHEM, POTTER, DUJARDIN, 105
Paul Potter. Two Cows in the foreground, one standings
the other lying down ; Herdsman and three other Cows in
middle distance. — The original copper is the property of M.
Galichon, of the Gazette des Beaux Arts. It may be con-
sidered fairly representative of Paul Potter. It bears out my
observation, that he did not sketch. The two cows are pre-
sented with great force and with much brilliancy of effect ; but
the lines have never the freedom of great etching, and are, in
fact, a sort of engraving with the etching-needle. The fore-
ground plants are studied leaf by leaf, in the pre-Raphaelite
manner, and with the pre-Raphaelite deficiency of synthesis.
The three cows in the background, instead of being freely
sketched according to the more artistic system of Rembrandt,
are here engraved with a dry formality quite opposed to the
spirit of etching. The same formality may be observed in the
foliage, which is bad, and in the leafless tree, which is, if
possible, worse.
The Bull (Bartsch, i. 41, i). — This is one of the most
firm and brilliant of Paul Potter's works, and the qualities of
it are concentrated in the head, though there are fine indica-
tions of form on the body of the animal. There is a class
of his etchings which have no pictorial completeness, but are
simple studies of individual animals. Considered as studies,
and without especial reference to the peculiar qualities of
etching, these are always remarkable, and sometimes even
astonishing. This bull is one of the best.
Three studies of Horses : Le Cheval de la Frise (Bartsch,
i. 47); Le Cheval Frimissant (Bartsch, i. 49, 10); La Mazette
(Bartsch, i. 41, 13). — These three studies are amongst the
strongest things that Paul Potter ever did. The first is an
illustration of power in repose, the second of eager excitement,
the third of melancholy decrepitude and of death. The
most marvellous of the three is certainly the neighing horse,
which is a brilliant feat of memory. The other two may have
been studied more at leisure.
io6 BERGHEM, POTTER, DUJARDIN.
Karl Dujardin. Cow, Sheep, and Herdsman, with a city
in the distance, — The best thing here is the head of the cow,
which may be taken as a perfect example of Dujardin's most
successful work. So, on the other hand, is he not unfairly
represented by the childish weakness of the distant landscape.
There is not the least merit of any kind in the trees and hill,
and the buildings all lean to the left, in defiance of gravita-
tion. There is no local colour ; and tree, and hide, and grass,
are all left white in the light
A Ruin near a stream, Artist sketching. — Since there are
no cattle here, but only a landscape and buildings, we can
expect nothing but feebleness. This is modest and unpre-
tending work, based upon the notions of landscape prevalent
in the seventeenth century ; but it is surprising how it was
possible for a man who had really studied the construction
of animals, not to have clearer insight into that of inanimate
nature. Such work as this is as inferior to the etching of
Haden or Lalanne, as the water-colours of a modem school-
girl to the work of Richardson. It sometimes happens that
an artist will compensate for his sins against natural truth by
the mere power of his workmanship ; but here, as in all
Dujardin's landscapes, the etching is as technically weak as
the interpretation of nature is unintelligent and inadequate.
CHAPTER V.
VAND YKE AND HOLLAR.
T N the course of the last few pages there has not been very
much eulogy of the unqualified and enthusiastic kind.
Good etchers are exceedingly rare, having hitherto been
produced in Europe at the rate of about two in a century.
It is possible that, notwithstanding the divergence of opinion
on the subject of the rank and capabilities of the art, which
unhappily subsists between the present writer and the large
majority of the general public, there may, nevertheless, be
more harmony between us than we supposed. The public
is indifferent to all etchings whatever ; the critic is indifferent
to all but a very few etchings.
No true critic can be indifferent to Vandyke. He is one
of the great princes of the art, a royal master who is to be
spoken of only with the most profound respect He had all
the great qualities ; he had perfect freedom and exquisite
refinement ; he used the needle with admirable ease and
grace, and his masterly force was restrained and tempered
with a cultivated severity. But it is inevitable that a genius
of this kind, whose purposes were few, and who always kept
steadily to the path where success ever attended him, should
not offer matter for so much commentary as the less
admirable and less wise, but more various and audacious
artists who have undertaken many different enterprises, and
alternately surprised the world by unexpected triumphs and
almost unaccountable failures. A writer, cunning in his
craft, who found himself obliged to supply many pages about
io8 VANDYKE AND HOLLAR,
Vandyke, would have recourse to speculations about the
personages he painted, and the history and characteristics of
their age ; so that the artist himself would become nothing
more than the pretext for a dissertation on manners and
events. But of Vandyke himself, as an etcher, little more is
to be said than the few sentences already written. His aims
were few, his choice of means instinctively wise and right, his
command of them absolute, his success complete.
Hollar was not a painter, but a most industrious engraver,
and it has rarely happened hitherto that a professional
engraver has produced original etchings of great artistic
value. The training of an engraver is injurious to originality,
and restrictive of freedom, it has also the drawback of being
almost exclusively manual and interpretative ; and there is
always a great danger that the engraver who attempts
artistic etching will fall into the set methods which have
become habitual to him, and tliink less of the great artistic
exigencies than of that manual neatness and polish which, as
an aim in itself, great artists have ever disdained. There
have, however, been one or two exceptions to this rule ; and
though it is generally true that, to become a great etcher, it
is necessary to be first a great painter, it is also the fact that
one or two engravers, by profession, have etched occasionally
in the high artistic sense. The great majority of Hollar's
etchings are not to be recommended as examples of this
particular art, but one or two of them have a rare and
delicate beauty, which gives him a certain rank.
The proofs of Vandyke's etchings have greatly increased
in value of late years. At M. Seguier's sale, in 1844, they
averaged from three to eight pounds each, and were then
thought to be very dear. At recent sales they have produced
sums varying from eight to thirty pounds. Mr. Marshalls
set, which a few years ago might have brought eighty or
ninety pounds, was knocked down at his sale (i 864) for ^^400.
It may be considered certain that, as etching becomes better
VANDYKE AND HOLLAR, 109
appreciated, the plates of Vandyke will attain still higher
prices.*
Vandyke. Lucas Vorstermans, — The execution of the
portrait itself, including the drapery, is quite magnificent, but
the background is rather unfortunate in its formality. The
regular horizontal lines are wanting in vivacity, and the little
dots between them complete the appearance of mechanism.
Whenever Vandyke falls into anything like mechanism, it is
sure to be in a background ; and on this account I should
sometimes prefer an early state, before the background was
added. In the portrait of Vorstermans the hair is very free
and beautiful, and there are some remarkably fine darks in
the drapery, especially to the left side.
Justus Suttermans, — There is much nobility in the well-
set, intelligent head ; but the wonder of execution in this
portrait is the costume, especially on Suttermans' left shoulder,
where the lightness of the lace-collar contrasts with the firm
and elaborate drawing of the gatherings of the cloth. Observe
the good sketching of the right hand, and the way in which
the finish of the left shoulder passes gradually into free and
loose indication below the waist
Franciscus Vrannx, — A grand old fellow, with a strong
kind-looking face and observant eyes, which he was accus-
tomed to use, for Vrannx was a painter of Antwerp. Observe
the masterly indication of the irregular moustache and small
beard,' and the flowing lines of the mantle.
Joannes Snellinx, — One of the most genial of all Van-
dyke's portraits, and technically one of the finest. The
countenance beams with good humour, and the etching is
luminous and lively. The figure, in this instance, has received
no injury from its background of sky and cloud.
* A complete set of Vandyke's etchings has lately been reproduced by M.
Amand Durand, in heliogravure^ and the set is very precious to a student of
etching, from the rarity of the originals. The price is sixty francs.
no VANDYKE AND HOLLAR.
Hollar. Gentleman playing on a Guitar, — The Hollar
collection, at the British Museum, is so very extensive, that it
may be well to inform the reader that this is the last plate
in the sixth volume there. The guitar-player is seated near
an open window, through which are visible a tower and some
shipping. The guitar is of curious construction, being double-
scrolled. The player has long hair, a beardless youthful face,
and very beautiful, somewhat feminine hands. This etching
is remarkable for a quite extraordinary delicacy of treatment,
and a most exquisite taste. It is not so vigorous as the work
of Vandyke, but fully equal to him in elegance. The metho-
dical habits of the engraver recur most in the window-opening,
and are especially observable in the mechanical treatment of
the sky. There is a great deal of lovely curvature in the
guitar and the player's hands, and it is probable that Hollar
may have felt the utility of the stiff window lines as a con-
trast The tonality of the whole plate is quite perfect in its
own key.
The Long View of Greenwich, — Recommended for study,
only on account of the distance and the observatory. The
foreground, which is covered with dull engraver's work, is
curiously barren and uninteresting, and even the sky is
mechanical.
CHAPTER VI.
CANALETTI, RUYSDAEL, AND OTHERS.
T^HERE is a certain clearness of manner, and simplicity
of purpose, in Canaletti, as an etcher, which makes
his work esteemed, not only by connoisseurs, who usually
follow tradition in their estimate of works of art, but even by
true critics and artists. It is possible that a reason for the
reputation of his etchings may be that, although he lived
sufficiently long ago to be accepted with the respect given
by connoisseurs to old masters, he has much of that modem
feeling for the picturesque which most of us secretly enjoy,
and which, in this case, we may legitimately applaud. If
Canaletti were a living contemporary, connoisseurship would
be less satisfied of his merits ; for connoisseurship, like the
Catholic Church, waits a hundred years before it canonises
its saints.
Canaletti's work is clear, and simple, and honest ; but it
has very little freedom, a moderate appreciation of beauty,
no grace, and no imagination. He saw that Venice was
picturesque, and in him the modern enjoyment of architecture,
as a pictorial subject, found its first adequate expression;
but we have better architectural painters in these days ; and
though good etchers are always very rare, we have one or
two men who etch better than Canaletti. The word which
best characterises him is respectable mediocrity, but it is
mediocrity still, however respectable.
His subjects were usually well selected, and his effects
pictorial, though of the most ordinary kind. His etchings
112 CANALETTI, RUYSDAEL, AND OTHERS.
would have greatly benefited by a more thorough study of
tonality ; in several of the most important thefe are obvious
faults of relation, chiefly due to a timidity about the values
of near shadow and of local colour. In slighter work than
that of Canaletti there may be much frank omission, even of
tonic relations; but he laboured his plates all over, and
when he failed in this respect it was not the bold transgres-
sion of consummate science, but the hesitating error of half-
knowledge.
Ruysdael has an immense fame amongst connoisseurs,
especially on the Continent ; but this is one of those cases
in which the modern study of nature is sure to drive the
student either into secret revolt or open rebellion. I say
nothing here of his pictures, which are out of my present
subject, and the reader may worship Ruysdael as a "god of
painting," if that kind of devotion is necessary to his spiritual
comfort ; but of Ruysdael, as an etcher, I say simply that
he is down somewhere in the fifth or sixth rank. It is
intelligible that when work like that of Ruysdael is held up
as the work of a great master, the majority of the public,
not having time to investigate thp matter for themselves,
conclude that the whole art of etching is imperfect
Salvator had magnificent gifts of a certain kind, but was
not a great etcher, because he did not insist upon the especial
powers of the art. All that Salvator did in etching might
be done equally well in engraving, and he really aimed at
the artistic objects of the great Italian engravers. Some of
his plates are admirable in their way, but they are all bad
examples of etching. The finest of them, to my mind, is
" The Abandonment of CEdipus," which is sufficiently studied
below.
Dietrich was exceedingly clever, manually, and very
various in manner, but he was remarkable only as an
unusually apt imitator of other men's work. His talent, in
this respect, was nearly equal to the wonderful gift of our
CANALETTI, RUYSDAEL, AND OTHERS. 113
contemporary, Flameng, and would have been better em-
ployed in copying rare plates of the great masters than in
attempting subjects of his own choosing. He is mentioned
here because, if the reader listens much to the prevalent
ideas about etchers, he may be led to waste time in studying
him, and embarrass himself with speculations as to which, of
all the various manners in which Dietrich worked, was the
manner of Dietrich. I doubt whether he had any manner.
A plate is mentioned below as being, in all probability, the
nearest expression of his personal feeling ; but most likely
it is, as to workmanship, a reminiscence of some engraver
unknown to me.
Everdingen produced a considerable number of etchings,
of which by far the greater proportion are wholly unprofitable
for study. Considering the century in which he lived, Ever-
dingen was, however, remarkable for a genuine love of wild
scenery. He loved rocks and mountain-streams, with cottages
and chalets, and so far is in unison with our modern senti-
ment. I am rather prejudiced in his favour on this account,
and should have been glad to praise him heartily if he had
been a more powerful aquafortist He worked generally in
a clear and intelligible way, and several of his plates are
very pretty. As an aquafortist he reached a certain moderate
skill, sufficient for the expression of his ideas, but had not
much power of hand or nobility of style. He was also
destitute of invention.
Waterloo and Weirotter are represented by examples
given in this book. They were both accomplished men in
their way ; and Weirotter is especially remarkable for his
industry. Waterloo had a gjreat liking for sylvan scenery,
which he represented as well as any landscape-etcher of his
time, but without either the tenderness of Claude, the
grandeur of Salvator, or the accurate knowledge of the
modems. Weirotter was very fond of picturesque buildings,
of which he etched an immense variety, usually composing
1 1 4 CANALETTI, R UYSDAEL, AND OTHERS,
them very happily with other materials, such as marine
subjects, figures, and landscape. He had the great artistic
quality of being able to reach the tonality he aimed at, in
which he seems to have had a certainty equal to that of a
painter, and many of his etchings are almost as complete, in
this respect, as pictures. They are frequently luminous and
agjreeable in aspect ; they are also much nearer to the feeling
of modem students of the picturesque than the work of older
masters usually is. The copy from Weirotter given herewith
is a good instance of this, for the interest of the artist in the
detail of the old cottage, and the way he follows its ins and
outs, are very modern indeed. I find, on the whole, that
Weirotter rises in one's estimation as time goes on, which is
the best proof of substantial qualities in an artist. In the
plate given here the cloud is too hard and rocky, but the
sky is (at least in the original) very pure and equal in tone,
and the buildings are treated very skilfully, every line being
studied with the utmost care throughout the variety of its
inflections.
Canaletti. La Torre di Malghera. — A white tower to
the right, and two low buildings to the left of it ; mountains
in the distance, and water in the foreground, with a boat
under the building, and a gondola coming into the picture,
on the left. There are clouds in the sky, which is etched
with much labour. The water is entirely rippled.
Of all Canaletti's etchings this one is the most luminous
and the most modern in its choice and interpretation of
subject. The buildings are etched with much force and
considerable freedom, but the sky is too mechanical.
Le Procuratie e S, Ziminian, — A large, open place in
Venice. To the right is the corner of a lofty building with
balcony shades, and to the left another building with arches.
There are high Venetian masts in the open square. This
etching is truer, as to general tonality, than any other by
PLATE IV.
COTTAGE ON A SHORE,
Part of larger Plate by Weirotter.
Copied by the Author.
PLATE IV.
(To he placed opposite page 114.)
Cottage on a Shore, part of a larger Plate by
Weirotter.
Copied by the Aui/tor.
BITINGS.
In Dutch Mordant, heated to 90* Fahrenheit.
Minutes.
Extreme distance . '.
Sky .........
Shaded cloud . . ... ' '.
Promontory with figures ...
Cottages and cote .......
Foreground, water, and boats .....
4
8
12
25
40
60
First proof taken.
The plate was now covered for rebiting, and all the darkest portions \
were rebitten from five to fifteen minutes more.
Second proof taken.
The plate was now covered with the black ground, and light shades added !
wherever wanted. These were bitten from eight to sbcteen minutes.
Third proof taken.
The plate was finished by reducing some of the palest lines in sky,
cloud, and distance, and by adding a very few with the dry-jxjint
It is printed very simply indeed, being cleanly wiped and not retrcnissie. '
CANALETTI, R UYSDAEL, AND OTHERS, 1 1 5
Canaletti, but the subject is somewhat formal, and much
inferior, as picturesque material, to those which Canaletti
found accidentally in places less generally known.
RUYSDAEL. The Little Bridge (Bartsch, i. 3 1 1, i). — ^This
is one of Ruysdael's important plates, and the subject in
nature was no doubt exceedingly picturesque, but the artist
has not fully availed himself of the fine quality of his
material. The rendering of decayed thatch and rough wall
is considerably inferior, in point of skill, to good modern
work ; and the relation of masses is so entirely lost sight of,
that the plate, as a whole, is feeble. There is little composi-
tion, for the etching is merely a study : but, such as it is,
more might have been made of it.
The Travellers (Bartsch, i. 313, 4). — ^A rivulet running
through a forest A large forest-tree stands towards the
left, with its roots in the water ; a smaller one has fallen
forwards across the stream. On the right hand are three
travellers on the river-bank, and above them a space of sky
with clouds.
This may be quite fairly taken as a representative of
Ruysdael's landscapes. One cannot refuse to it the merit of
a certain picturesque wildness, for which Ruysdael had an
instinctive feeling ; but only thOse connoisseurs who make
themselves the uncritical echoes of tradition would ascribe
either to this plate, or to any other of its class, any especial
value as an interpretation of nature, or any considerable rank
as art. It is work of nearly the same value, though not at
all of the same kind, as that of the modem French etcher
Etienne ; yet I did not think it necessary to give special
mention to Etienne in my account of the French school, and
should probably have omitted Ruysdael in this place, if his
great reputation had allowed me to pass him in silence.
Salvator. The a bandonment ofCEdipus, — The shepherd
1 1 6 CANALET7I, R UYSDAEL, AND OTHERS.
IS tying CEdipus by the feet to the trunk of a great chestnut-
tree. There is much grandeur in the design of this tree,
and the arrangement of the figures. Many contemporary
landscape-painters, especially Mr. M'Callum, could draw a
fine tree, with closer imitative veracity, but there is a magni-
ficent passion in this design of Salvator's, and a determined
intention to make us feel certain striking elements of forest
sublimity, which are not common in any school, and always
exceedingly rare amongst the literal designers. We are
made thoroughly to feel the great height of the tree, and
the vast reach of its far-spreading intricate branches. Its
trunk rises like a lofty tower, and its clustered leaves poise
themselves above our heads like the wings of innumerable
birds. These qualities, however, might have been equally
well given in a pen-drawing ; and neither this, nor any other
etching of Salvator, insists upon the especial advantages and
superiorities of etching as an independent art Salvator,
like many other artists, employed etching as a convenient
process for the multiplication of his drawings, just as in
these days he might have employed the graphotype ; but he
was not, in the peculiar and especial sense, an etcher.
Dietrich. Tke Satyr in the Peasanis House, — A satyr
having paid a friendly visit* to a peasant, accepts his hospi-
tality, and attempts to eat hot soup with a spoon ; but, not
being accustomed to utensils of that kind, declines, with
much energy of gesture, to repeat the experiment There is
plenty of vivacity in the action, and the group is engraved
with considerable skill. I use the word engraved purposely,
because this is rather engraving with the needle than free
etching.
EvERDlNGEN. Cottages by a Torrent (British Museum^
Everdingen, voL i. p. 19). — Two chalet-like cottages to the
left ; a stream flowing down amongst rocks over a weir made
PLATE V.
TREES,
Van of a Landscape by Watkri.oc
Co/*/)',/ Ay (Ih Aulhor.
PLATE V
[\\> \jc placcii uj»|)Obilc page iio.
Trees, part of a Landscape by Waterloo
Copied by the Aut/ur.
hi ihis little landscnpc ihc organic lines and the shading arc m^rc di>i'iK'"y
SLpani'.cd than is comn^c-n with tlie older mailer*. It may I'O lal.en r> a >;■" i
'jxanii.tie (►!' mellic^d. The ]'l.ile passes lliroui;h two distinct >tatc.^ cwc. t." .•!>;.■.?!.
linc^ and the be^^itinings (■! deep >hade>, the other tVir liglit shadings, whi\.!i a!c
'.lirown over what is aheady d«.mc as a semi-transparent veil.
BITINGS.
I:; Dutch Moidaiii, heated tt> ^jo' I-'ahrvidicit.
Minult
('l«;ikl> and \h<tancr
l-ilJlhte^i I'iirls '''l' !ivr> .
r'niiag'- j^cncrally in hgh"
Dark parts i{ ln^cs
r unks ;ai' 1:^:11 n^
KiMeLTrouiv.)
8
\2
0".
\~.: -. [M •■•: •. ik'j:\ I .:o |. ia'.c w.i> huw coveud agam with hiack ginimdj
i i .""! 'I- l\';l >hadiii^ was addcvi. '1 ln.-> was bitten Cn-'ni bcvcn M
'*'<.i.A.i;'l pio": lakti) \ hitle hght iliaihng with dry-point wa^ advicd
hvi^: au'j thjie.
Ip r":!U:rii' llic i.l.iic was clcaiici wiiii the hand, and then nJ.-rus^u- n\
llic: ri.»ie;^r..>un'.i and nearest tree to tlie right
CANALETTI, R UYSDAEL, AND OTHERS. 1 1 7
of a trunk of pine ; rocks and rising land to the right ; pines
and other trees. Four goats in the right corner, and three
other goats on a shaded rock near the middle of the etching.
I think this is the most charming of all Everdingen's bits
of wild river scenery. It is very fresh in treatment, and it
is evident that the artist had a real liking for rocks and rude
cottages by wooded hills and streams.
The Man near a Gap in a Fence (British Museum, Ever-
dingen, vol. i. p. 19). — A little hill with a wooden cottage
on it, and a wooden fence in front of the cottage all knocked
down ; there are some pigs and goats, and a man who is
walking down from the cottage happens to be near an open-
ing in the fence — whence the title. The sky is clouded, and
there are a few trees behind the building.
This subject, though simple, is agreeably composed, and
much use is made of the variously-inclined stakes in the
broken fence. In the quality of freshness this etching is
equal to the preceding one, and both are above the usual
average of the artist.
Waterloo (the plate of which a portion is given here).
— ^Waterloo often etched studies of trees, and this is one of
the best examples amongst many plates of his. The reader
will see that Waterloo had clear ideas of the richness, and
fulness, and softness of foliage ; that he studied the projec-
tion of its masses, and could group his trees effectively. The
black shadow, in the left-hand corner, forming a triangle with
the edges of the plate, is a conventionalism very commonly
found in the landscape-art of Waterloo's time.
Weirotter. a River Scene (British Museum, vol. ii. p.
5 6). — ^A group of boats, with sails, in the afternoon sunshine,
their stems towards the spectator. Men are taking an anchor
in a small boat to the right, and two men are rowing in
another small boat to the left, over which is a windmill on
1 1 8 CANALETTI, R UYSDAEL, AND OTHERS,
the shore. For its brilliant lighting, clear composition, and
fine tonality, I think this is the best of all Weirotter's river
subjects, and, on the whole, his most desirable etching.
Civita Vecchia, — A round tower to the left, from an
opening in which men are bringing merchandise down an
inclined plane to a boat The tower and other buildings
are relieved against dark trees, and there are large white
clouds in the lower part of the sky, against which come the
yards of several lateeners. The foreground is entirely water,
calm, but slightly rippled, with boats. This is a very
characteristic example of Weirotter, for it includes all the
kinds of material which he most enjoyed. The plate is
bright and effective ; but a greater etcher would not have
given to it such steady equality of labour. Weirotter could
arrange a subject well, and had much manual ability ; but
he had not the wayward choice, the delicate emphasis, the
charming caprices, and inimitably wise omissions of the
nobler aquafortists.
CHAPTER VII.
ZEEMAN.
TN the proportion of space allotted to each master, in the
course of the present volume, I have usually been guided
by considerations which have little to do with the estimate
of his rank and importance which is most generally prevalent
The popular estimate of an etcher's rank is not based upon
his etchings, which are never popular, but upon his paintings ;
and etching is so little understood, that when an artist has
painted well and etched badly (David Roberts and Eugene
Delacroix are recent instances of this), his plates easily
obtain a greater degree of attention than they deserve. But
even if the general estimate of an etchers work deserved
serious attention, which it does not, the question of merit
would not of itself decide the extent of space which ought
to be allotted to him. It may easily happen, as in the case
of Vandyke, that the most distinguished qualities may
belong to an artist of whom very little is to be said, whilst
some far inferior man may suggest whole pages of observa-
tions on the practice of the art, which ought not to be sup-
pressed merely because they are not connected with some
illustrious name. The subject of this volume being much
more the art of etching than the men who have practised it,
I have gone very much upon the principle of writing when
I had something to say, and stopping short when nothing
more remained that seemed to be worth communicating, a
principle which is often fatal to the strictly proportionate
treatment of a subject, but which nevertheless has the one
I20 ZEEMAN,
great compensating advantage, that the writing is not
forced.
Zeeman was not noticed in the first edition of this work,
because there did not seem to be any special reason for
noticing him. He has a chapter in this edition, because
from the direction of the most recent etching it is clear
that the danger of contemporary students lies in the ambition
to be elaborate, and especially in the desire to realise every-
thing, without leaving anything to the imagination. The
practice of some etchers of the Dutch school may be useful
as an example of simplicity of treatment, and Zeeman
especially is an excellent instance of this. I am far from
wishing to set him up as a great etcher ; he never was great,
but he worked on clear and simple principles from which he
never departed, and modem work may be done upon the
same principles whenever we choose to adopt them. Zee-
man's art was formal and naif, and not nearly so rich in
various knowledge and observation as the art of the most
accomplished moderns, but it is quite possible to express
much richer knowledge than he ever possessed by the means
which he employed. There is no necessity to adhere
minutely to his artistic recipe, it is enough to understand
what is really worth attention in his principles.
His artistic recipe was to divide the scene into three
planes — distance, middle distance, and foreground; the dis-
tance to be very pale, the middle distance rather dark, and
the foreground invariably black. Sometimes there were four
planes, in which case there would be two middle distances ;
but it was never consistent with Zeeman's recipe to have a
light foreground and a dark distance, though such a combina-
tion occurs very frequently in nature.
We need not trouble ourselves about any recipe of this
kind. Modern art has got far beyond that stage, and places,
as nature does, its lights and darks where they are needed
for the most various effects.
ZEEMAN, 121
AVhat we may learn from Zeeman and other artists of
his time is the value of a clear decision about the interpreta-
tion of nature. His mind was quite made up about the
extent to which he meant to go in realisation. All very
luminous and even spaces were to be represented by blank
paper, fine gradations in them being left to the imagination
of the spectator. Shades and reflections were broadly and
quietly given, it being always clear whether a mass was in
shadow or in light. Texture was suggested by direction of
line rather than by actual imitation of the quality of surfaces.
One consequence, to Zeeman himself, of the adoption of
these principles was that his works are never muddled by
anxious experiments. All that he intended to do he could
do without any painful struggling to put accident on his
side. Therefore, it may be well for any one who is wearied
with such struggling to remember that the true ark of safety
is to be found in self-imposed limits to interpretation. In
imposing such limits upon oux intentions, we do not accept
" imperfection," as it is sometimes called. All art which is
perfect as far as it intends to go is wholly perfect, and truly,
in the best sense, finished. In this sense Zeeman's etchings
are more finished than a great deal of modern work which
is far more laboured ; and if the great purpose of art is to
convey impressions, then these etchings are successful, for
they always fully convey the impression which the artist
intended to communicate.
I. Marine Subject, — Two boats with sprit-sails and lee-
boards are leaving shore. In the right-hand corner a man is
hauling a small boat in with a boat-hook on the highest of
seven stakes which rise out of the water. There are sails in
the distance, and a square tower, with a glimpse of land. A
few clouds in the sky, and birds to the right.
This etching quite gives the idea of a tranquil Dutch sea
picture, with afternoon sunshine on calm water. The boats
are drawn with perfect knowledge, and the reflections will
122 ZEE MAN.
bear criticism. A little thing is often of much importance
in art Here the shadows cast by the sprits upon the sails
give most of the impression of sunshine.
2. Marine Subject — Here it is low tide, and a sloop is
ashore on the right There are several figures of men on
the sands, and a group of boats are drying their sails in the
middle distance. In the distance to the right we have a
church, with a spire and other buildings; to the left, five
boats with sails. The water is dead calm.
The distance and middle distance are very slightly bitten,
and the sky a blank, except a few pale clouds and a little
horizontal shading at the top. It was Zeeman's way some-
times, when he wanted to give an idea of calm sky, to rule
a few horizontal lines at the top, and to the left, but he lefl
the rest blank. From the length of the shadows cast this
must be morning or evening. It is worth observing with
how few lines the calm sea is represented. The whole
distance is exquisite in temperance and delicacy.
3. Marine Subject — Sailing-boats receding into distance,
the nearest of them with a flag at the poop, as well as at the
peak andnnast-head, and a square-sail under the bowsprit,
a man-of-war in the distance to the left, three punts and
several men in the foreground.
Nothing is better adapted than shipping for the study of
distances, because ships can be placed so conveniently at the
intervals that the artist may desire. This plate, part of
which is copied for the present work, is quite a model of
this very useful kind of study. In the early stages of
practice subjects of this kind will be found especially useful
for the definite purpose which they give to three or four
distinct and successive bitings, as the distances are marked
by clear intervals, and not by difficult gradations.
PLATE VI.
BOATS NEAR SHORE,
Part of a plate by Zeeman.
Copied by the Autlior.
PLATE VI.
(To Ijc placed opposite \ age 122.)
Boats near Shore, part of a Plate by Zeeman.
Copied by the Author.
BITINGS.
In Dutch Mordant, heated to 90° Fahrenheit.
Minutes.
1
1
1
!
The most distant boats, the clouds, and the sail of the nearest boat
but one ........
The nearest sailing lx)at, and the hull of the nearest but one
Water near foreground . ...
Water in the immediate foreground .....
Foreground figures ......
Darkest things in foreground . .
7
15
20
30
45
65
First proof taken.
The plate was now as intended!, except that some of the palest lines,
ha\'ing been puq^oscly overbiitcn (7 niin.), had to be weakened with the
scraper and burnisher, whilst other lines had to ho. introduced. This was
done witli the burin.
The plate is printed simply, with .<;Hght retronssage. It is wiped with
canvas, not with the hand.
CHAPTER VIII.
GOYA.
T T has not been part of the plan of this book to give
either biographical detail, or much commentary on those
qualities of artists which lie altogether outside of the artistic
qualities. It is easy, under the pretext of art-criticism, to
fill volumes both larger and more readable than this with
matter in which purely artistic studies are a very inconsider-
able ingredient ; and I am clearly aware that a shrewder
literary craftsman would have thrown the art of etching
altogether into the background, and amused his readers with
pleasant stories about the adventures of Salvator and the
amorous intrigues of Goya. Resisting these temptations, I
have kept in view one purpose only, the study of etching as
an art, and have given space to etchers only so far as they
have either really excelled in the art, or at least had the
reputation of excelling in it.
Whoever cares to know about the life of Goya may find
full information in M. Charles Yriarte's " Biography " (pub-
lished by Plon, lo Rue Garanciere, Paris, 1867), which,
though a narrative of facts, is the most extraordinary romance
of artist-life imaginable. Goya was a man of very remark-
able endowments outside of art He had immense physical
energy and courage, and at least as much moral audacity.
He was ready to measure swords with any bully who might
present himself, and sought adventures of this kind in the
disorders of the public streets. His numerous illustrations
of bull-fights are derived from personal experience in the
124 GOYA.
arena, but he defied things even more dangerous than any
mere animal rage, for he was openly revolutionary in
religion and politics, exposed himself to the hostility of the
Inquisition, and even violated the rigid etiquette of the
Court of Spain. His successes with the fair sex were
innumerable ; his strength and courage, his easy self-confi-
dence and conquering address, made him a master in the
arts of gallantry, and he had mistresses in every rank of
life, from the women of the common people to the most
exalted ladies of the court
Groya had imagination, but of a frightful sort, like the
imagination of a man suffering from delirium tremens ; yet
this imaginative familiarity with evil spirits does not seem
to have affected the happiness of his existence, a happiness,
such as it was, based on the substantial realities of the most
robust health and complete professional success, with the
satisfaction of all the appetites of an energetic animal nature.
His etchings are the expression of his violent and ebullient
personality ; they are full of passion, but it is observable that
there is no trace of any delicate or tender sentiment, or rather
that what in other men would have been a sentiment-of this
kind, as, for instance, pity for the sufferings of the afflicted,
takes, in Goya, the form of protest and antagonism, and be-
comes a furious cry of hatred against the oppressor. M.
Yriarte tells us that in Spain there exist pictures by Goya
which prove artistic delicacy and good taste, that there are pas-
sages of sweet colour, and feats of tranquil and loving finish ;
but I am compelled to doubt whether M. Yriarte s enthusiasm
for the subject of his book may not have led him to regard
those works too favourably. It is certain that he immensely
exaggerates Goya's rank as an aquafortist, in attributing to
him great technical skill, and especially in saying that he
has " few rivals in the practice of his art." I have met with
a small original etching by Goya, " The Prisoner," of which
the copper belongs to M. Lefort, and that plate is good even
GOYA. 125
as an etching ; the quality of the work is really fine. This
may be considered to prove that Goya was capable of etch-
ing well occasionally, but to etch well was not his usual
practice. He'generally etched rashly, audaciously, and with-
out the slightest care or pains to reach any beautiful or
agreeable quality. It is quite possible that a good painter
may be a bad etcher ; there are several instances of this
amongst our contemporaries ; and it is also possible that
his etching may bear some of the worst marks of presump-
tuous amateurship. Goya was original in manner, because
he took up '^the process without profiting by the experience
of his predecessors ; but ignorance is generally original, for
it has no trajditions. It is natural that literary men should
like to write about Goya, because he is an excellent subject,
and very strong things may be said about his works without
overstepping the limits of simple truth. A well-known
living poet wrote a volume entitled " Chastisements," and at
the close of some verses of extraordinary force, said grimly
to his victim, " I hold the red iron, and I see thy flesh
smoke !" This is exactly the temper of Goya : he was
always inflicting chastisements, always holding red branding-
irons, and watching the steam hissing from the shrivelled
cuticle, and the bubbling blood. Of all the great satirists,
he is nearest to the nature of a fiend. It was here that his
power lay, in his Satanic hate and scorn, not in the mastery
of a refined and delicate art It is right to add that, though
licentious to the depths of his being, he had more sympathy
with certain great modern ideas than any other famous
Spaniard. He was a son of the great revolution, and liberal
in feeling, though attached to a dissolute court. His works
have an important philosophical bearing, often disguised to
evade the Inquisition, and he tried to make men disgusted
with the horrors of war. Even his immorality is sometimes
only a protest against the still deeper legal immorality of
the mariage de convenance.
126 GOYA.
Bull-fighting: Plate 3. — ^An artist who undertakes to
illustrate the science of bull-fighting ought at least to be
able to draw the parts of a bull. The ignorance of con-
struction is here so complete, that the nostrils are repre-
sented by two small round holes, the eye is out of proportion
and badly set, and the ear is not in its right place. There
is not a single instance, in all the thirty-three illustrations of
bull-fighting, of an eye or an ear even tolerably well drawn.
In one or two plates the nostrils are a little better than
these, but Goya's most general notion of a nostril, either in
a bull or a horse, is a round hole bored with a large gimlet.
He has never in a single instance drawn the ear of either
animal.
Bull-fighting: Plate 7. — Goya's childish ignorance of
animal form was seldom more strikingly manifested than in
the wretched little bull in the right-hand comer of this plate.
There was no difficulty in the attitude, for it is the easiest
of all possible attitudes ; and, since it is the same as that of
Paul Potter's bull, the reader may advantageously compare
the two animals. Paul Potter had not the fire of Goya, nor
his ferocity, but he condescended to study nature, which
Goya did not, and so taught himself the proportions of the
creature, and the shape of its most important joints. To
begfin at the ground, look at these hoofs and fetlocks ! Could
the bull gallop with them } Could he even stand on them }
Bull-fighting: Plate 10. — If you take an old rocking-
horse, and char its head with fire, and then smear what
remains of its face with thick white paint, you will possess,
in sculpture, a work of art, accurately corresponding in
scientific truths and artistic value to this wonderful horse of
Goya. The combination of ignorance with assurance never
ended in the production of art more hideously corrupt. Its
formlessness is like the falling away of the putrefied flesh.
The art here is not merely lifeless, but it is rotten — not a
pleasant word to use, but the most appropriate.
Caprices: Plate 23, Aquellos Polbos. — The first two
GOYA. 127
words of a Spanish proverb, which means, " From this dust
comes that mud." The subject is a woman condemned by
the Inquisition, and clothed in the frightful and fantastic
costume which its victims had to wear. It is the nearest
approach to good etching by Goya that I remember. The
figure is simply and vigorously indicated, and there is nothing
unnatural or distorted in the attitude.
Caprices: Plate 30, P or que esconderlos ? ("Why hide
them } ") — An old man wants to hide his money-bags, and
his heirs are laughing at him, because they know that, how-
ever closely he clutches them, his death will shortly place
them in other hands. Nothing can exceed the hideousness
and baseness of these figures ; and the curious thing is that
Goya evidently liked to contemplate such baseness.
Caprices : Plate 36, Mala Nocke. — Two wretched women
out in a dark, windy night, their dresses blown about. There
is some poetry here, of a terrible kind, and the plate is
impressive. Goya's system of aquatinting for light and
shade, though artistically far more less complete than Turner's
mezzotint, from the all but total absence of gradation, is here
sufficient for his purpose, and gives the necessary violence of
opposition to the white petticoats of the women, and the
necessary bteckness to the night.
The etchings of Goya are in several different series :
The Caprices, 80 plates ; The Disasters of War, 80 plates ;
Bull'fightingy 3 3 plates ; The Proverbs ; and The Prisoners.
He also etched a series of horses after Velasquez, and a
series of dwarfs after the same master, besides many original
separate plates. Many of these are now rare, and I have
only studied about two hundred of Goya's etchings ; enough,
however, to convince me that, though he had certainly the
genius of a satirist, and plenty of imagination of the most
horrible kind, his etchings have little artistic value, and owe
their great fame to the fascination of their incomparable
horror, and a kind of philosophical reflection whose bitterness
suits our taste.
CHAPTER IX.
JONGKIND.
TN the first edition of this work I noticed Jongkind in a
chapter devoted chiefly to the minor Frenchmen, but
further study has decided me to give him a chapter to him-
selfi as it happens that the qualities he relies upon are still
most rare in the modem schools. The purpose of his art
as an etcher may be explained in a few words. All land-
scape-painters make memoranda of impressions, which must
of necessity be done very rapidly if they are to be worth
anything, because the effects in nature change so fast that
they cannot be sketched at all by a slow hand. Jongkind
has so far trusted to the intelligence of the public (or of the
small cultivated public to which he addresses himself), as to
make memoranda of impressions directly upon copper, and
print them. This is the whole explanation of ^is work as
an etcher. But now comes the person living outside of art,
who, when he sees one of these etchings, feels first puzzled
and then offended, and thinks that both artist and laudatory
critic must be making fun of him. " Could not any child of
ten years old do as well } " The true answer to this ques-
tion (it is not an imaginary question) is, that, rude as this
sketching looks, and imperfect in many respects as it really
is, the qualities which belong to it are never attained in art
without the combination of talent approaching to geniys,
and study of a very observant and earnest kind, quite beyond
any possible experience of infancy. The right way to esti-
mate work of this nature is to look upon it as the artist's
JONGKIND. 129
manner of noting down an impression in all its freshness.
Jongkind succeeds in doing this, either by an unconscious-
ness which is itself a great gift, or else by an effort of will
strong enough to set himself entirely above the criticism of
ignorance. There is something approaching to sublimity in
the courage which was needed to send plates of this descrip-
tion to the printer. All landscape-painters have made
memoranda of this class, though they rarely make them
quite so well, but Jongkind is the first who has had the
courage to publish them. It seems like the rashness which
tempts Providence to set these things before the French
bourgeois, or the English Philistine, for the only public they
are fit for is a public of true amateurs or artists ; but who-
ever can really read them is in a fair way for being able to
read all painting that sets itself honestly to the rendering of
the mental impression in its unity.*
Jongkind is invaluable to the student of etching as an
example of simple line-work pushed to its utmost extreme.
• Although the most ignorant people laugh at Jongkind because they cannot
see the difference between his brevity of expression and the meagreness of a child's
work, it so happens that two of the best etchers in Europe, in writing to me about
other matters, incidentally expressed their approval of Jongkind, and I find in
Charles Baudelaire's VArt RomanHque a hearty and intelligent appreciation of his
work, which may be worth quoting here.
''Chez le meme editeur (Cadart) M. Jongkind, le charmant et candide peintre
Hollandais, a depose quelques planches auxquelles il a confi^ le secret de ses sou-
yenirs et de ses reveries, calmes comme les berges des grands fleuves et les hori-
zons de sa noble patrie — singuli^res abr^viations de sa peinture, croquis que
sauront lire tous les amateurs habitues d dechiffrer TSme d*un artiste dans ses plus
rapides gribomllages^'*
Whether the etchings of Jongkind are more frequently abbreviations of his
painted work or sketches done from nature or recollection, I cannot quite
certainly inform the reader ; but in any case the word " abbreviation " is rightly
used by Baudelaire, and if the reader thinks of these etchings as an excellent kind
of shorthand in which the expression is abbreviated to the utmost, he will come
very near to a right understanding of their purpose, though it is not possible fully
to appreciate their singular and curious merits as an interpretation of nature with-
out studying nature itsel£ They are full of keen observation of natural facts and
effects.
K
I30 JONGKIND.
He gives as few lines as possible, never dissimulating them,
and never attempting any shade or gradation that would
require much craft of biting. Such biting as he does give
is quite simple and decided, about three bitings to each
plate — a good vigorous black (no mistake about that), a
middle tint, and a pale tint for distance. The shading is
generally open, but runs very close for contrast in some
passages, such as the black hull of a ship. He is always
careful to economise labour in shading for fear of spoiling
the vivacity of his plate, which it is so very easy to do.
Thus the open sky with him is blank paper, and so is calm
water, only waves and reflections being indicated by lines.
He sketches clouds in frank line, broad and bitten shallow.
He resorts also sometimes to a kind of blotting, like that of
the ink in pen-sketching.
The town of Maasslins, Holland. — A skating scene on a
canal to the right, elevated above the level of a plain to the
left, and divided from it by an embankment. There is a
great windmill to the left, and the town with its churches is
in the distance. Plate dated 1862.
Readers who have studied Topffer will remember what
he says about the difference between identity and resem-
blance. If an artist draws a thing quite accurately, he gives,
not something resembling the form, but the actual form
itself as it strikes the retina. But it is possible to give a
resemblance of the form, very remote from identity, and yet
much more interesting to the spectators, interesting even
from the very contradiction between its demonstrable inac-
curacy, and its curious look of truth. This may account for
the strange interest of the skating figures in this composi-
tion. Arc they men and women } Certainly not, for men
and women so constructed could never walk — much less
could they skate. They are mere puppets, no more, yet
such lively puppets that they give us the notion of skating,
far better than more elaborately drawn figures would do if
JONGKIND. 131
their action had been less happily conveyed, whilst from the
system of execution used being exactly the same as that for
the surrounding landscape, they harmonise with it perfectly.
It is very interesting to notice with how little labour Jong-
kind suggests a gradation. One is suggested (not realised)
in the water, and another in the cloud near the mill. The
spectator's imagination immediately supplies what is want-
ing.
Entrance to the Port of Honfleur, (Dated 1863). — As
there are no clouds in this sky, the artist has wisely left it
perfectly blank, because white paper (or paper with the
slight tint left by the ink when the plate has not been
cleared with whitening) expresses the serenity of the pure
sky with a perfection that would be most probably lost if
any attempt were made to shade it, whilst the gradation in
the shading would probably be too imperfect to satisfy a
delicate taste. We are made at once to feel that the light
comes from the spectator s left by the shadows from the two
masts of the brig, which fall towards the right. The water
is expressed by a few widely-separated wave-marks. There
is a little very light tinting of transparent shade upon the
pier and distant houses. The steamer close to the pier
(apparently a mere confusion of blotted black lines) is a very
clever representation of the effect of a steamer upon the eye
at that distance. There are two cutter-rigged boats to the
left in the middle distance, and a rowing-boat with four men
in it, over the signature. All these are remarkable for great
liveliness and motion, and, as in all Jongkind's etchings, when
anything is moving at all we are made to see and feel that
it is moving.
View of the Railway Port at Honfleur (Dated 1866.)
— A singularly awkward subject to choose, with disagreeable
perspective lines of rail and quay edge, and a perfectly blank
space in the middle. It is worth study only for its perfect
unity and truth of impression, for it gives you exactly the
132 JONGKIND,
feeling of being at one of those uncomfortable railway ports
where you are generally liable to be run over by a waggon,
and to be tripped up by a rope in attempting to get out of
its way. The sky is cleverly treated, with its few thin
diagonal clouds, and the calm water to the left is expressed
with a few wavy lines for prolonged reflection from boat and
vessels. If the reader has the plate, by all means let him
observe the very summary execution of the little cock-boat
with its two inhabitants.
Sortie du port de Honfleur, (i 864.) — ^To my feeling this
is the best of Jongkind's plates. It is composed of water
and sky, with shipping and boats, and there is a lighthouse
on the shore in the distance on the right hand, and a large
building to the left. The sky is cloudy, and darkens to the
right with powerful open shading, so energetic that it seems
as if done with sabre-strokes, but it is not deeply bitten.
The black hull and masts of the brig in the foreground to
the left are bitten very energetically, and are a very fine
example of powerful treatment of near material. The water
is translated by open lines indicating ripple, or a generally
calm surface and reflection, both being expressed with great
knowledge, though most laconically. There is some parti-
cularly clever treatment of shallow broad lines about the
steamer to the right, and some masterly black blotting as in
a pen-sketch. As usual, there is much motion in the boats
that move under sail or oar, which enhances the tranquil
majesty of the stationary brig.
CHAPTER X.
VAN S'GRA VESANDE,
nPHIS etcher was not included in the first edition of the
present work because his etchings have been published
subsequently. I think that he has a fair right to the dis-
tinction of a separate chapter for the following reasons : —
There are few etchers in any age who are at the same
time simple in their methods of work, and original. The
proportion of such etchers at the present day is small indeed.
There have never been so many etchers at one time as there
are now, yet out of the hundreds who practise the art it is
difficult to find more than a very few who express ideas of
their own directly and harmoniously. It is sometimes
believed that such summary expression of original concep-
tion is very easy, and almost beneath the attention of
accomplished artists, who are able to carry their work very
far forward in the direction of what is popularly considered
to be " finish ; " but the truth is, as any one who likes to try
it will soon discover for himself, that the power of etching
simply and beautifully at the same time is very rare. It
has always seemed to me, and it seems to me still, that this
gift is the gift for an etcher, and it is so because it saves him
a world of technical trouble in the regrounding of plates,
rebiting, rubbing out with charcoal, and so on, all which toil
of a manual kind is a loss of time which might be spent in
what is more essentially art.
134 VAN S'GRA VESANDE,
M. de Gravesande * has published two portfolios of etch-
ings, the first consisting of thirteen plates, including the
title, the second of ten plates. In each collection there are
etchings which might have been omitted without loss, simple
studies from nature, without sufficient artistic significance to
afford a substantial reason for publication. It is necessary
to draw the line somewhere, and I think it ought to be
drawn between works which have composition, or what looks
like it; that is some relation between their component parts,
and those in which there is no such relation. Simple studies
of objects are valuable to the artist, but may be kept for his
private use.f
Le lac cCAbconcU, — Part of a lake with a flat shore.
Two windmills and some trees in the distance, pollard
willow, and rushes in the for^round, to the right. A sailing-
boat on the water, and also a small boat in which a man is
sculling. Long clouds slightly sketched in the sky, and a
few wild ducks.
The most noticeable thing here is the treatment of the
water, which is full of real knowledge^ expressed with the
utmost simplicity of method. There is a broad band of
ripple in the distance, then a calmer interval which reflects
* Carel Nicolaas Storm van S' Gravesande is a Dutch gentleman, with the title
of Jonkeer, and a son of the Vice-President of the house of Representatives, who
b also a member of the Council of State. He studied for the bar, and took the
degree of Doctor of Law at the University of Leyden, but, having a strong taste
for art, quitted legal studies for the career of a painter, to which he has remained
faithful since, for the occasional pursuit of etching can scarcely be considered an
infidelity to the Muse of Painting, however jealous she may be. As the subject of
this notice published his etchings at Brussels he translated his name into French
for the convenience of the southern public, and called himself Charles de Gravesande.
t It appears, too, as if in his second publication M. de Gravesande had
associated together plates too widely different from each other in size, so that the
smaller ones are injured by too much margin, a matter well worth noticing, as it
happens to engage our attention. It is a great mistake to suppose that a margin
cannot be too large. An unreasonably wide space of margin makes an etching (or
drawing) look insignificant instead of enhancing its importance.
VAN S ' GRA VESANDE, 135
the windmill, or rather just recognises it. The boat is sailing
on another space of ripple, and little waves come washing in
amongst the rushes. The group of trees in the distance is
treated comprehensively in masses, but the pollard willows
to the right seem coarsely drawn when you think of the
delicate beauty of a real willow.
Au bord du Gein pris Abconde. — ^This is one of the most
perfect etchings produced by the modern schools, so perfect,
indeed, that if I were restricted to the possession of six
modern etchings this should be one of them. The material
is nothing but. a river shore with a few trees and bushes,
and a windmill. The sky and water are both great tranquil
spaces of white paper, the one varied by four or five very
light streaks of cloud, and a few birds, the other by bits of
vegetation rising above the surface, and a ripple here and
there. It is not at all an exaggeration to say that the
tender and delicate beauty of the shading on the windmill
and distant foliage, and of the corresponding reflections in
the water, is equal in the quality of softness to the softest
work in a chalk or charcoal drawing, whilst in the strong
deeply-bitten markings on the nearer shore and foreground
there are a vigour ai)d decision which belong to etching
alone. This etching is indeed a perfect model for three
great qualities whose union is rare indeed. It is both very
tender and very strong, and at the same time very re-
served in the best and wisest way. The consequence is
the harmony of a complete impression, in which nothing is
insufficient and nothing excessive. The reserve is most
visible in the treatment of water and sky. An etcher has to
choose, for open sky, between the tranquillity of blank paper
and the gradation to be obtained by shading. The gain by
shading is doubtful, because the gradation is likely to come
wrong ; the loss in any case is certain, because no shading
can ever have the purity and repose which in blank paper
come so near to the quality of sky. Therefore in an etch-
136 VAN S'GRA VESANDE.
ing like this, the blank paper is far from being meaningless ;
it means the spotless, lineless texture of sky and water
which in nature is so pure.
VEscatit i Burght, pris Anvers. — A shore with a small
jetty and landing-stage, boats in the foreground, and a
steamer and sailing vessels in the distance. This plate is
beautifully composed (observe, for example, the utility of
the two oars), and the distant boats are skilfully introduced.
M. de Gravesandc's boats and boatmen are always full of
life, even when the man is a speck on shore or the sail a
speck on the horizon ; and his study of water deserves praise
for thoroughness and temperance, for its true indication of
the perspective of rippling surfaces, and that delicate noting
of reflections which marks what is most faintly perceptible,
and rejects all arbitrary theories of what the water pheno-
mena ought to be for a subtly intelligent observation of
what they are.
Entree de fork. — The entrance of a dense pine-forest,
no sky visible nor any distance, as the eye can only pene-
trate a few yards into the gloom amongst the trunks of the
pines. In the foreground is a narrow and rough road going
into the forest.
This plate is almost entirely etched in strong, deeply-
bitten markings, like Turner's etched work. It is one of the
most impressive sylvan subjects I ever met with, and at once
reminds us of Dante. Not only are the deep markings well
etched, but there are also most skilful shadings and salissurcs
of the copper between the lines.
Le Retmir de la Pechc, — Women coming back from the
fishing on the sea-shore under a high cliff*. They are just
descending a rude wooden stair set against a strong sea-wall,
with massive beams and planks.
This large plate is more in the direction of tone etching
than the artist's earlier works. The cliff* is all in shade, and
so are the figures. The wood-work is powerfully etched
VAN S'GRA VESANDE. 137
in line. The scene is poetical and impressive, but not
beautiful.
Pecheurs sur la cdte de Normandie, — Rocks on the shore
at low tide, with a few women seeking shell-fish amongst
the weeds. Sea calm, without boats. A few light clouds
in the sky.
Remarkable as the simple and poetical rendering of a
true motive. It makes you feel exactly as you would feel
in the dreary place itself, with nothing visible out to seaward
but the calm water and calm sky, and nothing more in-
teresting or beautiful on the shore than rude rocks and poor
fisher-folk gathering a scanty subsistence before the tide
rises. The panoramic length of the drawing aids the
dreariness of the impression, for we see that, however far
we look to right or left, the scene is still the same, with
no hope of anything less melancholy than stones, and sand,
and salt-water.
CHAPTER XI.
MODERN GERMANS AND OTHERS.
T T was not the original design of this book to mention any
artists but those who etched their own compositions, for
when an etcher interprets a picture he ceases to act as a
creative artist, and becomes merely a translator. The
important position, however, which etching has assumed of
late years as one of the branches of engraving, will not per-
mit me to pass in silence so accomplished an executant as
Unger, but since for the same reason it has become neces-
sary to mention several other etchers from pictures, I have
preferred to group them together in a chapter towards the
end of the volume, in which their special branch of the art
is studied in a more connected way than it could have been
if the materials had been scattered throughout the book. It
would be impossible, in such a chapter, to omit the works of
William Unger, and at the same time it would be very dif-
ficult to do him justice when occupied with original etchers,
because an entirely peculiar kind of criticism has to be
applied to an etcher who interprets painters. There is
always, in such a case, a great risk of confounding the
painter and etcher together, and of attributing to the latter
merits which are not his own, or shortcomings for which he
ought not to be held responsible. A critic will therefore do
wisely to keep the two classes of etchers apart, and the
same reasons may make the separation a convenience to the
reader also by removing some causes of perplexity.
Amongst original modern German etchers, the best of
MODERN GERMANS AND OTHERS. 139
those known to me is Gauermann. His etchings of animals
are often delicately accurate in detail, and in such a piece
of work as the drawing of a goat's horn he will often prove
a rather surprising skill. It would have been no more than
justice to give him a separate chapter, or at least to study-
one or two of his principal plates, and some readers may
think it strange that so hasty a sketcher as Jongkind should
be so honoured when Gauermann is passed with a simple
mention. Let me explain, therefore, that in my view of the
art, which will probably be found to be the correct one, no
accomplishment in the representation of details, however
exquisitely they may be done, can atone for the absence
of that far higher kind of study which sees things in
their mutual relations as parts of an artistic whole. Accur-
acy in separate detail may be reached with painstaking, by
workmen of the most ordinary intelligence. Open any
French book of science or travel, illustrated carefully by
the best wood- engravers " of the day, and you will find
details of the most astonishing minuteness, often almost
rivalling those of the photograph ; indeed this very clever
handicraft has been carried to such a pitch of perfection of
late years, that it seems impossible for it to be carried
farther. Such study of detail in scientific or mechanical
illustration is precious for its utility, but in the fine arts
detail is never precious unless in absolute subordination to
some artistic scheme which embraces the whole work, and
even then the detail is worth having only just so far as it
helps the greater unity in its effect upon the mind. The
study of detail for .itself is positively injurious to compre-
hensiveness of sight Examine a leaf on a tree, and whilst
your attention is occupied with the individual leaf, you will
not see the branch as a whole, still less will you see it in its
true relation to the background of hill or sky. The most
idle of all idle occupations is to spend time in " finishing "
things which will never take their proper place in the com-
I40 MODERN GERMANS AND OTHERS,
position. Until everything is in its right place it is no use
thinking about finish, and when the parts are in right rela-
tions to each other, very little finish will be needed. The
enormous Kunstverein (German Art Union) etchings are
amongst the most curious examples of wasted labour in the
world. The hastiest scrawl of any artist who can truly see
half-a-dozen things at once is worth a lifetime of such mis-
taken industry. Mere skill with the fingers and patience in
labour, without selection, without comprehensiveness, with-
out emphasis, without passion, are offensive in proportion to
their very success. The more a dull etcher practises the
art, and the more assiduously he trains himself in the sort of
base dexterity which dulness devises, the more hopeless does
his work become.
The full severity of these remarks is deserved by the
work of the true German Philistines, but there are some
Germans whom it would be unjust to write against quite so
energetically. Gauermann, above mentioned, is not dull,
but only rather too observant of truth in detail to see truth
in mass. The landscapes of Zimmermann and Wurthle are
not without some comprehensive energy, but still not suffi-
ciently free and intuitive for great etching, and Morgenstern
(who punningly signs himself Morgen^^) is somewhat bolder
than Zimmermann, but deficient in lightness and grace.
Eberle finishes cleverly in a pretty modern way, and Brenn-
hauser is skilful to a degree which only makes one regret
the misapplication of his abilities.
It has happened, since the first edition of this book ap-
peared, that many etchers in different countries have sent
proofs of their plates to me. In this way I have enjoyed
opportunities for becoming better acquainted with the state
of the art in different parts of the world. The tradition of
the old Dutch etching lingered into our own century in the
person of an etcher named Trooftwyk, who died young, and
left a littie series of plates behind him, which were founded
MODERN GERMANS AND OTHERS. 141
on the practice of Potter and his school, not, I believe, as a
conscious revival of a past state of art, but simply and sin-
cerely as a tradition. This etcher, though so near our own
time, seemed wholly untouched by modernism in his com-
positions, but in isolated subjects he once or twice rivalled
the beautiful detail of Gauermann, and showed a modern
temper and sympathy with animal life, especially in his
affectionate studies of dogs. All his cattle, on the other
hand, are seen through the medium of the traditional Dutch
etching of another time, and have the spirit of it so com-
pletely that one might easily suppose them to be the very
cattle which browsed and sunned themselves in the Holland
of two hundred years ago.
Contemporary Italian etching appears to owe what
activity it possesses to French influence chiefly. The Duke
of Sartirana has etched one or two plates which may be
mentioned honourably, especially one which appeared in the
publication of the French club for 1869, entitled ''En Italie.
La Phhe aux GrenouillesJ* This was quite artist's work,
although the author was an amateur. Other plates by the
same etcher prove a careful study of tone in masses, not
always sufficiently sustained by adequately rendered form.
In this instance etching is a family tradition, as the father of
the present Duke of Sartirana practised the art assiduously.
Amongst modern Italian painters who seem to have the
genuine etcher's gift, I may mention Bianchi of Milan, but
he has produced very little, not choosing frequently to lay
aside the brush for the etching-needle. Alberto Maso Gilli
is an excessively skilful realist, who represents the comedy
of bourgeois existence with undeniable force, both of expres-
sion and execution, but it is a kind of talent which, though
startling for the vivid reality of its effects, is essentially
vulgar in more respects than one. The very brilliance of
the trompe Vceily so successfully aimed at, is vulgar in itself.
Every imaginable artifice is resorted to in order to obtain a
142 MODERN GERMANS AND OTHERS.
deceptive relief. Figures are set in strong lamp-light against
black backgrounds till they stand out like models, and they
are shaded with a completeness that leaves nothing to the
imagination. There can be no question, however, as to the
manual and technical power with which the purpose is ac-
complished ; sometimes, indeed, the technical power is so
striking, that a more refined artist might well envy the pos-
session of it. In " Un Rimprovero " a wife is taking a
malicious pleasure in letting her husband know that she is
aware of some infidelity ; the woman's face is for the most
part in strong shadow, and it would be diflScult to find in
the greatest works of the greatest masters a more thorough
piece of work than the shading of that face, in which every
gradation is attended to, and every reflection, even to the
faintest The different expressions of the two faces are as
life-like as they possibly can be, but all this technical and
other ability is employed to tickle the tastes of a very low
section of the vulgar continental public
Etching is now practised in every country sufficiently
advanced in civilisation for any thorough culture of the fine
arts. Paris is the metropolis of etching, but of what is done
there this is not the place to speak. There is a good deal
of etching activity in places often too scattered for good
results. The position of an etcher, for example, in some
remote locality in America or Australia, is not favourable
to rapid progress, because he may be stopped by technical
difficulties in what French artists call la cuisine de I'eauforte,
or he may not ciirect his studies from nature towards the
kind of skill and knowledge which is specially most useful
to an aquafortist. An isolated etcher, however, is better off
than an isolated painter, because he can easily get examples
of good work which may be purchased cheaply when rarity
is not an object, whereas good pictures are always costly
things, and the isolated painter sees little but his own can-
vases. Very curious instances of the effects of isolation
MODERN GERMANS AND OTHERS. 143
reach me from out-of-the-way places in different parts of
the world. For example, an American sent me a series of
large etchings of lake scenery in his own country, in which
all the trees were well drawn, some of them even remarkably
well drawn, with a strong sense of sylvan beauty, and much
evidence of observant study ; yet, at the same time, all the
other components of lake scenery, mountains, water, rocks,
and foreground vegetation, were done with exactly the
degree of knowledge which is common in the works of
school-girls. Now, if this etcher had not been so much
isolated, some artist-friend would have told him to direct his
studies more equally. Other solitary students get into
difficulties with their chemicals, not being able to deal pro-
perly with acid and copper. They complain, too, of their
distance from a competent printer who would test their
plates in various ways. Then they let themselves be influ-
enced by friends who know nothing about the art, or about
any art, and so toil after false finish. The consequence is
that there is very little good etching done anywhere in the
world by students who are not in communication with Paris
and the leading etchers there.
ETCHING AND ETCHERS.
BOOK III.
THE FRENCH SCHOOL.
CHAPTER I.
THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN FRANCE.
pOR the last fifteen years the practice of etching has
gradually become a more and more important branch
of artistic work in France, and now the French school is not
only the most active in Europe, but it is so influential that
all other schools are directly affected by it. At first the
art was revived by a few isolated artists, including some of
the most distinguished painters, who etched a few plates for
their own satisfaction. In this way Engine Delacroix
etched a little, so did Meissonier, Daubigny etched more,
Charles Jacque gave still more attention to the art, and at
last a great number of painters pursued etching sufficiently
to attain a certain degree of skill. Then came M^ryon, who
did not succeed as a painter, but gave himself entirely
to etching, and so expressed a rare and original genius.
Lalanne, too, a very clever artist in black-and-white, who
worked but little in colour, found etching much to his
taste, and produced many plates. Martial, a very accurate
draughtsman of streets and buildings, became a most pro-
ductive etcher, and issued hundreds of careful studies on
copper, which proved his mastery of the process. Jules
Jacquemart, who had worked before in water-colour, took
to etching with the rest, and astonished every one by an
unexampled truth and delicacy in the rendering of still life,
so that his works were at once appreciated by all who valued
beautiful representations of beautiful things. In this way
the impulse was given, and the art was alive again. Then
148 THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN FRANCE.
a young and energetic publisher, M. Alfred Cadart, deter-
mined to devote himself to the publication of etchings, and
gathered round him the scattered artists and amateurs who
had revived the art. He founded a club, called the " Soci^td
des Aquafortistes," which published some fine things, and a
good many plates that tried to be fine but were not ; yet,
however defective may have been many of these attempts,
they were singularly free from the bourgeois or Philistine
spirit, and addressed themselves to the appreciation or to the
indulgence of the genuine critic or artist, rarely to the tastes
of the vulgar. The Sociiti issued a monthly publication of
five plates, which gave place later to a smaller periodical
issue, called Vllliistratiofi Nouvelle, in which a more equally
good quality was aimed at, and in some measure attained.
Finally, in 1874, M. Cadart began to issue an annual port-
folio of much higher average quality than either of the
two monthly publications. During the twelve years which
elapsed from 1862, he had also published a great number
of independent collections of etchings by various artists,
many of which deserved the serious attention of the public
Although M. Cadart was the only French publisher,
and, indeed, the only publisher in the world, who has made
etching his specialty, several others in Paris have included
it amongst other kinds of engraving which they brought
before the public The most noteworthy instance of this
is its employment by M. Hachette for his unprecedented
edition of the four Gospels, illustrated by Bida with 128
pictorial compositions, which were all etched by Bida him-
self and fifteen other etchers. The enormous sum of money
lavished on the production of this work would never have
been risked twenty years ago on an enterprise which de-
pended upon etching for its success. At that time a
publisher determined to invest fifty thousand pounds in a
monumental enterprise would have selected line-engraving
as a matter of course, and the intensity of the general
THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN FRANCE. 149
prejudice against etching, both in the trade and out of it,
would have prevented him from even taking it into con-
sideration as an admissible kind of art. Times are changed,
however.
The fame and splendour of this g^eat publication, of
which a hundred and forty proof copies on Dutch paper
were sold at ;^8o apiece, whilst ;^20 was the price of an
ordinary one, ought not entirely to eclipse many minor
publications which have been illustrated with a few plates.
Several other publishing houses have employed etching
as a means of book-illustration for works of the highest
class in iditions de bibliophile, Messrs. Marne, of Tours, for
example, have used it for their magnificent editions of La
Fontaine, Pascal, Bossuet, Boileau, F^nelon, Madame de
Sevign4 and La Bruy^re, all which are illustrated in etching
by Foulquier. The tasteful printer and publisher, Jouaust,
whose charming editions of old books are so well known
to collectors, has brought out the tales of the Queen of
Navarre and the Decameron of Boccaccio with etchings
by Flameng, all inventions of his own, which entitle him to
honourable mention as an original etcher, independently of
his rank as an engraver. In this way the public is becoming
familiarised with etching, which no longer appears strange
and unfashionable. This result is also due to the steadily-
maintained influence of two periodicals, U Artiste and the
Gazette des Beaux A rts, both of which have for many years
employed etching as their principal means of illustration.
Daubigny contributed plates to V Artiste in 1840, 1842,
and subsequent years, and the same periodical gave en-
couragement to other artists at a time when the demand
for etchings was so slight that they had little chance of
reaching the public without the regular circulation of a
magazine. This magazine was founded in the year 1831,
and, though not remarkable for much refinement of taste,
has rendered an appreciable service to the fine arts by
ISO THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN FRANCE.
disseminating lithographs and engravings of various kinds,
many of which have been of a high character. It has never
been exclusive with regard to the kind of engraving em-
ployed, and it willingly admitted etchings of the most
artistic kind (such as those of Charles Jacque and Dau-
bigny) at a time when they were by no means generally
popular. The editors appear to have consulted very differ-
ent tastes, for some of the lithographs which they inserted
could with difficulty have been tolerated by any one capable
of appreciating the etchings, and they even gratified lady-
subscribers with coloured plates of the fashions. What is
truly painful, however, is not so much to see common art
admitted into a periodical as to see great art systematically
excluded because it is not likely to please the multitude,
and the credit which V Artiste deserves is for not having
excluded work of a high kind, which always appeals to
a limited and cultivated public of its own. Along with
much that was coarse or meretricious in taste, this periodical
has issued some of the very best work, both in lithography
and etching, which has ever been produced in Europe ; and
if the revival of etching is traced to its sources it will be
evident that one of those sources is the manner in which
U Artiste was edited, and the liberality with which it pro-
vided for the tastes of a minority. It not only encouraged
Daubigny and Charles Jacque at the commencement of
their careers, but it has since then encouraged other genuine
artists, such as Flameng, Veyrassat, Bracquemond, Soumy,
and Queyroy. The foundation of the Gazette^ which
occurred much later (in 185 7), was also a fortunate occur-
rence for the development of etching. This periodical has
been favourable to etching, not only directly by the publica-
tion of etched plates, but also indirectly, by keeping itself,
with admirable consistency, far above all condescension to
the bourgeois or Philistine spirit, both in its criticisms and
its illustrations, most especially perhaps in the courageous
THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN FRANCE. 151
practice of printing the honest rough sketches of artists just
as they made them. There are hundreds of things in the
volumes of the Gazette which it is utterly impossible that
any Philistine should understand, and which must seem to
the bourgeois mind as ugly as they are incomprehensible ; *
so, as the periodical addressed itself to the educated public
only, it could employ etching, and has done so with good
results. The effect of an encouragement given to a particu-
lar branch of art is often felt afterwards in unexpected
directions. Trained by working for the Gazette^ a group of
etchers found themselves able to undertake work of a like
quality beyond the limits of the periodical, and this led to
the habit of etching galleries of pictures, or selections from
them, a practice the limits of which it is impossible to
foresee.
The influence of one man is sometimes of the very great-
est importance even in those movements which appear to
be the result of a tendency generally prevalent Thus, in
the revival of etching, the engraver Leopold Flameng has
given a strong impulse to one branch of the art, that which
concerns itself with the interpretation of painting. He was
born at Brussels, of French parents, in 183 1. At the age
of sixteen he, was a sufficiently good engraver to contribute
plates of his own to a publication on the galleries of
Florence. As his knowledge of art increased, so did his
feelings of rebellion against the kind of engraving which at
that time was considered the only legitimate kind. He
could not endure the pursuit of mechanical regularity as an
aim in itself, and soon perceived that the greatest artists of
the past had been superior to such an idle pre-occupation.
* Such pen-sketches, for example, as the Martyre de St. Laurent^ from a picture
by M. Lehoux, drawn by the author (published June 1874), and the Lever de Lune
d Ermerumville, from a picture by M. Moullion, drawn by the author (published
August 1874). The boldness with which the Gazette publishes things of this kind,
which are perfectly intelligible to artists, but sure to irritate the ignorant, proves
that the periodical in question relies upon a very highly cultivated public.
152 THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN FRANCE.
" Nanteuil, Edelinck, Drevet," says Flameng in a letter to
me, " n'dtaient pas esclaves de la tail/e militaire (ainsi
nominee par M. Charles Blanc) des travaux bien aligntl^s et
des iligants treillages (expression d' Ingres) lis ne recherch-
aient que la perfection du dessin, la grdce et la souplesse dans
r^x^cution." Flameng perceived, too, that in the work of
the great time there had been a certain rapidity in produc-
tion. A picture of importance was finished, and followed
very shortly by an engraving from it. " Edelinck ne met-
tait qu'un mois k graver un portrait admirable ! " Flameng
felt much discouraged by the condition of public taste in his
own time. Great engraving seemed to be killed outright —
killed by Wille and Bervic, who gratified the public taste for
mechanical regularity ^by an extreme purity of incision and
an excessive manual skill, which it became their chief pur-
pose to display. "These men," says Flameng, "were not
artists, but ingenious artisans. To the misfortune of modem
art they transmitted their skill and their artistic ignorance,
and even at the present day they condemn their successors,
who follow the same path, to spend long years upon plates
which dazzle the ^y^s with a superficial brilliance beneath
which is nothing. It is like the silk dress on a lay figure."
In Flameng's opinion the commercial death of line-
engraving was not due to photography, as has been sup-
posed, but to the excessive striving after mechanical perfec-
tion, which involved such a terrible sacrifice of time. Pub-
lishers abandoned it because, after investing great sums of
money, they had to wait many years before the plate could
be ready for publication, so that the general interest in the
subject of it had often already evaporated. Flameng per-
ceived that etching had not this inconvenience of slowness,
that an etched plate might be produced in a reasonable
time, and that the great etchers had not troubled themselves
about that mechanical regularity which is the banfe of art.
He therefore resolved to study etching especially, and see
THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN FRANCE, 153
what could be made of it. At that time he came to Paris,
where he worked at first obscurely, but after a while was
noticed by the justly eminent critic, M. Charles Blanc, who
was then engaged in founding the Gazette des Beaux Arts,
M. Charles Blanc at once perceived that Flameng was a true
artist-engraver, and that he would work in the genuine
artistic temper. He was therefore engaged as a con-
tributor, and has remained one down to the present day.
His work for the Gazette was in itself a training in the very
kind of artistic engraving which he desired to do, because,
from the admirable intelligence with which that periodical
was conducted from the first, every contributor was encou-
raged to think and feel as an artist.
Let me now briefly allude to another point in the history
of French etching which cannot be altogether omitted :
the position of the art in the public exhibitions. When
Flameng began to exhibit there was no chance for an etcher
toije honoured with any recompense whatever. The exhi-
bitions at that time were entirely under the control of the
Institute, a body not likely to welcome very warmly the
artistic endeavours of men who deviated from what was
then the established routine. This state of things was put
an end to by the Count de Nieuwerkerke, Surintendant des
Beaux Arts under the Second Empire. When, as a conse-
quence of his reforms, the jury was formed, independently
of the Institute, by universal suffrage amongst exhibitors, it
was more impartial, and soon recognised etching as an im-
portant branch of engraving. Flameng received medals in
1864, 1866, and' 1867. In 1870 he received the Cross of
the Legion of Honour.
M. Charles Blanc, a critic not at all given to excesses in
the use of epithets, and far too accomplished a writer to
forget, even for an instant, the necessity for distinguishing
between shades of expression, calls Flameng " illustrious " —
Villustre graveur — an adjective always reserved, in French
154 THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN FRANCE.
criticism, for the one or two men in a generation whom pos-
terity is likely to remember. The epithet is not misplaced
in this instance. Flameng is really one of those illustrious
men whose labours make epochs in the history of the fine
arts. He is a thoroughly great engraver, an artist-engraver
of the highest rank. Even if isolated, he would have had a
place in the history of art ; much more then is he secure of
such a place through the tradition already established by his
pupils, such as Laguillermie, MassalofT, and others. Though
but just in the noon of life, Flameng is already chef d'^cole^
and chief of a school such as has not been seen since the
days of Rembrandt ; a school which interprets painting with
a sympathy, freedom, and power, which are not to be found
in the same degree in any other class of engravers. M. L^on
Gaucherel has a place too in the history of art, for the same
reason. " My best works," he says with a beautiful modesty,
"are my pupils." Amongst them may be counted such
artists as Rajon, Le Rat, Courtry, Duclos, Lalauze.
The one thing which strikes us in this French revival of
etching is the sustained and extended energy of the move-
ment Although some English newspaper-writers, even in
considerable journals, are only just now beginning to be
really aware that there is such an art as etching, and are
wondering and laughing at it as a strange half-intelligible
new thing, like South Sea islanders when some puzzling
astronomical apparatus is landed upon their shores,* the
plain truth is that tlie French revival was begun more than
twenty years ago, and has been gathering strength ever
since. And in saying this I am much within the truth ; for
if you take as examples the careers of two living veterans,
Charles Jacque and Daubigny, you will discover that their
earliest plates were produced before 1840. The very first
plate by Jacque is dated ten years earlier, but that is a copy
* See a quotation from the Tlnus newspaper in the chapter on the Revival of
Etching in England.
THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN FRANCE. 155
after Rembrandt, a worthy beginning. Observe too that
since 1840 Jacque has steadily continued, and that in 1866
his omvre amounted already to 420 plates. Daubigny
began to etch in 1838, and in 1841 he exhibited several
etchings at the Salon. Mdryon was at work on his series
of Parisian subjects in 1850. Flameng exhibited in 1855.
These dates are quite sufficient to show that the movement
is not of yesterday, though the general public is only just
now beginning to be aware of it
The great increase in the number of etchers dates from
i860 or thereabouts. It would be better for any fine art
that its practitioners should be few and able, if that were
possible, rather than numerous and for the most part unskil-
ful What really happens, however, in the history of the
fine arts is this : — There are many mediocrities in a genera-
tion, and a few men of true genius, so that it almost seems
as if, in the arrangements of nature, the crowd were necessary
in order that the men of genius might be produced. There
is a general state of sentiment amongst those who concern
themselves about art, which urges them in some especial
direction at a particular time ; and the men of genius either
lead the crowd, drawing it after them, or else go with the
crowd at first, and afterwards rise out of the midst of it,
lifting themselves, as it were, upon its shoulders. Charles
Jacque, Daubigny, and Flameng, were leaders, pioneers ;
Rajon, Le Rat, Laguillermie, followed a movement already
begun, but rose higher than most of thoise who followed it
Few movements in art have been, on the whole, so
decidedly successful as this revival of etching in France. It
will occupy a very important place in the artistic history of
the nineteenth century. The chiefs of the revival have not
only made etching quite truly a living art again, but they
have pursued a course of study so wisely chosen that it has
led them to an absolute executive equality with the very
greatest etchers of the past The art is not merely alive
156 THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN FRANCE.
again, but it is alive in perfect strength. Never, indeed, in
the history of the fine arts have so many thoroughly accom-
plished etchers been gathered together within the walls of a
single city as there are at this hour in Paris. We do not live
in some short after-glow, some partial return of splendour
passed away, but in the full bright light of the morning *
* Since this chapter was written, a new art periodical has been started in Paris
on a scale more important than either of its predecessors. The name of this new
magazine is VArt ; it is published weekly, and each number contains, in addition
to other illustrations, one etching regularly, with the occasional addition of another.
The principal living etchers are on the list of contributors, and their chief business
is the reproduction of pictures. The advantage of L'Art over other periodicals is
the great size of its pages, which are in quarto grand colombier, a size measuring
seventeen inches by twelve. The first number contained a remarkably clever plate,
by Rajon, from a picture by Pieter de Hooge in the National Gallery (the Courtyard
of a Dutch House), but it is quite impossible for any periodical to keep up to that
level r^;ularly ; there are not enough first-rate etchers in the world to do the work.
However, the proprietors of VArt seem determined to enlist the best ability of the
day, and if their venture succeeds, as we may hope that it will, the art of etching
from pictures will be supported by three periodicals in Paris. It would be well,
perhaps, if these periodicals gave rather more encouragement, proportionally, to
the independent art of etching, which has aims and purposes of its own not unfre-
quently forgotten in the anxiety to interpret, by great labour and often with doubtful
success, the tones and textures of painting. But of this I shall have more to say in
another place.
CHAPTER II.
CLA UJDE.
'X'HE position of Claude as a landscape-painter may be
briefly defined before we consider him as an etcher.
He was the first artist who made landscapes thoroughly
charming by means of artistic and harmonious composition,
and beautiful effects of light By these means he captivated
the connoisseurs of his time, and became the father of
modem landscape. But he had an essentially classical
mind, and therefore could not enjoy pure and wild nature
like Englishmen and Americans of the present day, and his
study of nature was never very deep or passionate. By
long labour, and on account of his artistic aim — for he thought
more about art than about facts — he came to possess on
some points a very extraordinary technical skill ; and this
skill, in combination with his pretty composition and agree-
able eff"ects, has sufficed, and will probably always suffice, to
maintain his reputation. The modern study of nature has
proved that Claude was often scientifically weak, but it has
not dethroned him as an artist ; and although many of us
can see that he was ignorant of much that has since been
added to the common stock of information, we cannot prac-
tically beat him on his own ground.
His superiority as an etcher is chiefly a technical
superiority ; he could lay a shade more delicately, and with
more perfect gradation, than any other etcher of landscape ;
he could reach rare eff'ects of transparency, and there is an
ineffable tenderness in his handling. These are his chief
158 CLAUDE,
claims to our consideration, and he is so strong on these
points that such accomplished moderns as Haden and
Samuel Palmer have a great reverence for his name. Add
to these qualities a certain freedom and spirit in his lines,
which served him well in near masses of foliage, and a
singularly perfect tonality in one or two remarkable plates,
and you have the gfrounds of his immortality as an etcher.
He was great in this sense, but not great in range of intel-
lectual perception, and his genius at the best is somewhat
feminine. He has left a few unimportant and weak etchings,
but he has also left half-a-dozen masterpieces, which the
severest criticism must respect One merit of his is not
common in his modern successors — the extreme modesty of
his style ; no etcher was ever less anxious to produce an
impression of cleverness, and his only object seems to have
been the simple rendering of his ideas. He sincerely loved
beauty and grace, and tried innocently for these till his touch
became gentler than that of a child's fingers, yet so accom-
plished that the stubborn copper was caressed, as it were,
into a willing obedience.
Le Bouvier : second state (Dumesnil, i. 1 3, 8). — A herds-
man is seated near a pool of water which his cows are cross-
ing. Beyond the pool is a magnificent group of trees. To
the left of these trees are the remains of a temple, and, above
the herdsman, a distance with hills. For technical quality of
a certain delicate kind this is the finest landscape etching in
the world. Its transparency and gradation have never been
surpassed. The most wonderful passages are in the great
masses of foliage which have been, as it were, tenderly
painted and glazed with the point The composition is very
beautiful ; and, though the study of nature is less accurate
than in some modern work, there is a noble movement in
the trees which accurate draughtsmen often miss, and which
an etcher, of all artists, is bound to interpret and preserve.
Le Soleil couchant : second state (Dumesnil, i. 19, 15). —
CLAUDE. 159
A seaport at sunset. To the left, an arch of triumph in
shadow, and trees ; then a round tower, some battlements,
and a square tower ; after which two ships, and a distance
of hilly coast To the right is another tower, near which is
the setting sun.
This etching is remarkable for the inexpressible tender-
ness of its sky. When heretics and unbelievers say that
skies cannot be done in etching, it is always convenient to
answer them with a reference to this plate ; but the truth is
that although the sky is marvellously tender, and in this
respect undoubtedly the finest ever etched, the cloud-forms
are so simple and so little defined that Claude's success in
this instance has not solved more than one of the great
sky-problems.
Le Troupeau en Marche par un temps dorage (Dumesnil,
i. 22, 18). — Easily recognised by the massive fragment of a
ruined temple to the left The temple has Corinthian columns,
of which three only are visible. A flock of cattle and goats
is driven by a man and a dog in the direction of the temple.
In the middle distance, to the right, is a rising ground with a
castle on it Between the castle and the temple is a lake
with a village on its shore, and beyond the lake, in the
extreme distance, are mountains. The reader is recommended
to study more particularly the third state.
Claude seems to have had a sensitive and delicate nature,
more capable of enjoying the softly gradated sky of a fine
afternoon than the grandeur of gathering storm. The sky
here is curiously feeble and ineflfectual, but the etching is
one of Claude's best, and especially deserves to be studied
for the piece of ruined temple, which is etched more firmly
and substantially than any other piece of architecture by him.
La Danse villagcoise {J^MvatsxiCiy i. 28, 24). — What follows
refers to the first state only. The subject is generally
exceedingly pale, and Claude has here made an experiment
in the direction of mezzotint, by slightly roughening the
i6o* CLAUDE.
surface of his copper to obtain a tinted distance. The
foliage is exceedingly graceful, and, though the plate is
obviously an experiment, and an unsuccessful one, it is by
no means the least interesting of the series.
Seine de Brigands (Dumesnil, i. i6, 12). — There is a
mass of trees to the left, at the foot of which are dock-leaves.
Towards the bottom of the trunk these trees are crossed by
a palm-tree, and under the palm-tree a man is attacked by
brigands. The distance is mountainous, and the middle
distance wooded. The point of interest here is the contrast
between the firmness and brilliancy of definition in the palm-
leaves and other foreground foliage, and the tender quality
of work in the distance and sky.
Berger et Berghre conversant (Dumesnil, i. 25, 21). —
Not so rich in tone as some other etchings of Claude, but
free and grand in manner. The trees to the right have a
stately grace, and there is an extreme elegance in the tree
that divides the composition. There are some rolling clouds,
and there is little repose in the unquiet lines of the fore-
ground ; but the shepherd and shepherdess can have their
talk without paying much heed to so finely artistic a con-
sideration.
La Danse sous les arbres : second state (Dumesnil, i. 14,
10). — The central figure is a woman with short petticoat;
above her a group of trees. To the left is a woman with
tambourine, and four villagers are seated on the trunk of a
fallen tree. Foliage enriches the subject to the right and
left, and between the trees we perceive openings of hilly
distance. This plate is remarkable only for the manual
freedom in the foliage.
CHAPTER III.
C ALLOT AND BOISSIEU.
T T has already happened to me several times, in the course
of this volume, to mention artists when they enjoy great
reputations, even though I may have little personal sympathy
with their work. There is always, however, something to
interest us in the criticism of any artist, whether we like him
or not, for there is always a lesson to be learned. I believe
that no true etcher will get much good by the study of
Callot, because his manner was usually far more that of an
engraver than a genuine etcher ; but he was a man of great
genius and wit, and when he chose to use the point like a
true etcher he could do so very effectually. The bits of true
etching occur rarely, and only in parts of his works ; the
mass of what he did is spoiled, as etching, by reminiscences
and imitations of the burin. When the reader has studied a
few of the genuine etchers, he will at once see for himself in
what failure of this kind consists, and even so great a reputa-
tion as that of Callot will have little power to disturb the
tranquillity of his judgment. These great reputations are
so often due to something else than technical quality, or the
faculties which lead to high technical accomplishment, that
it is never any reason to conclude that an artist is to be
recommended as a model for imitation merely because he is
famous.
I have copied a small portion of one of Callot's etchings,
the gateway and bridge to the right of the Tour de Nesle.
The reader will at once observe that the bit I have copied is
M
i62 CALLOT AND BOISSIEU.
a composition in itself, and this leads us to one of Callot's
most curious defects. His larger subjects are not complete
compositions, but half-a-dozen minor compositions fastened
together in a sort of panorama. Any one of these, taken
by itself, looks more like a picture than the whole engraving
did, with its superabundance of ill-arranged material. In
this respect Callot differed as widely as possible from the
modem French school, which has understood that unity is
the first necessity of art, and has also perceived that a large
simplicity of subject is one of the easiest means by which
unity can be attained. Callot's power of composition was
often very great in little groups and bits, if considered
separately ; for example, there is a group of horses taken to
bathe in the river just under the Tour de Nesle, which is
grand enough to be a sketch for a noble picture ; the com-
position of it is as fine as it can be, but utterly thrown away
in the midst of so distracting a plate, where there is so much
conflicting material. What really secured Callot's fame was
the original and very life-like manner in which he treated his
figures. He had endless inventions in putting his little
people into what seemed natural groups. They are often
defectively drawn, glaringly out of proportion, and interpreted
with the strongest mannerism, but they act and live in the
great human comedy, and not even the most insignificant of
them are mere lay figures or dolls. As to their proportions,
the heads are generally too small, often ludicrously so.
Durer gave the head as an eighth of the body, and the
antique sculptors made it rather larger. Callot makes it
sometimes a ninth, and sometimes even a tenth. In the
plate entitled,
Ces pauvres gueux plcins de bon aduetures
Ne portent rien que des choses futures,
the player in the right-hand comer has so small a head in
proportion to his legs that the diameter of the calf is equal
to the whole distance from the chin to the top of the skull,
CALLOT AND BOISSIE U. 163
which would be a monstrous deformity in the living human
being, if ever such a misproportion occurred. Callot's exces-
sive mannerism is obvious. Its chief peculiarity is the habit
of reducing everything as much as possible to a peculiar
kind of curve, rather like the curve of a goose quill and
feather. If the reader will look at Callot's work with a view
to this curve he will be surprised by the frequency of its
occurrence. The chiaroscuro of his etchings and engravings
ought not to be criticised on the same principles as if it
were an attempt at complete chiaroscuro. It is a simple
indication of the direction in which the light falls, no more.
The texture of Callot's shaded surfaces is often not only
imperfect, but positively offensive, especially when he made
trellis-work with the burin, a plague to the eyes. He was
one of the very worst draughtsmen of landscape who ever
lived ; his trees are mere sausages, with tufts of grass for
leaves ; but he drew buildings with a sense of the picturesque
in architecture very rare in his own age, so that his records
of them are interesting in the highest degree, and we only
r^ret that they should be so few.
Boissieu is much more dangerous than Callot, on account
of his uncommon skill in the very things that a young etcher
is anxious to acquire. He could lay his tones with as near
an approach to absolute certainty as any etcher need hope
for ; and, in short, he was such a clever fellow that he could
do with his hands whatsoever his mind imagined. But all
this cleverness, though maintained by inexhaustible patience
and untiring industry, led only to delicate renderings of
distant tones, and a vulgarly deceptive imitation of nearer
objects. Boissieu could etch a tub till it looked as if it had
been photographed ; and he could etch a distant hill till it
looked as soft and grey as a hill in an old picture ; but both
tub and distance were always irremediably uninteresting as
fine art Boissieu was an extraordinary master of vulgar
imitation, in which no etcher ever surpassed him ; and he
i64 CALLOT AND BOISSIEU.
proved at least this, that there exists in etching a fund of
imitative resource which may be drawn upon to an extent
little dreamed of by people whose one idea about art is, that
it is the imitative copyism of objects, and who hate etching
because it is too interpretative for their taste. We shall
come later to an imitator of a far higher order, Jules Jacque-
mart ; but even Boissieu had settled the question as to
ii^hether etching, in skilled hands, could or could not imitate
things accurately.
Callot. La Tour de Nesle, — The Tour de Nesle is to
the right, near the middle of the composition. Beyond it
are the towers of Notre-Dame in the distance, the Pont Neuf,
and several church steeples, besides blocks of houses. The
foreground is animated by a variety of figures, some in boats,
some on horseback, others on foot
The distant view of Paris is beautiful, and the various
distances are carefully preserved. There is some bad per-
spective, as in the tower itself, where the rings of masonry
are wrong. A set of circles, seen in perspective, the circles
being at various elevations above the spectator, offers just
one of those little perspective problems which puzzle an
artist who is not quite sure of himself The figures have the
usual intense vivacity of Callot's men and women — they are
all alive and doing something ; this is a power akin to that
of Cruikshank, who, by a similar energy in movement, has
given life to figures so small that the faces are hardly visible.
It is a sort of pantomime that fills this foreground from side
to side ; every group is amusing, and a child might pass half-
an-hour in inventing histories of the actors.
I need not expatiate on the great historical and topo-
graphical interest of this etching ; its value, as a record of
Paris in Callot's time, is almost inestimable.
The Louvre, — Another view of the Seine, but this time
looking down the stream, with the Tour de Nesle to the left.
PLATE VII.
SCENE IN OLD PARIS, NEAR THE TOUR DE
NESLE, by Callot.
Copied by the Author.
PLATE VII
(To be placed opposite page 164. >
Scene in Old Paris, near the Tour de Nesi.e.
by Callot
Copied by the Author.
This is a very small portion of the lartjc plate which was publishcrl in the first
edition of tliis work. In the original the burin may have been a good deal used.
In the copy it has not been used.
BITINGS.
Distance and lightest touches on foreground
Middle distance
Darker parts of middle distance
Foreground
12
25
35
50
First proof taken. •
Plate not retouched.
In printing, this plate has been first well wiped with canvas, and then
lightly retroussSe in the foreground and the house to the right, but the
reiroitssa^e is strictly limited to these portions.
CALLOT AND BOISSIEU. 165
seen from the other side. The water is crowded with high-
sterned galleys, with masts and many oars. The sails are
furled, the long pennons are powdered with fleurs de lis. It
seems to be a royal procession by water ; the quays are
crowded with figures.
This is a good instance of the way Callot used to spoil
his etchings, by employing engraver's methods of work. In
the buildings to the left, the shading, which was at first per-
pendicular, has been ruined by a set of unmeaning diagonal
lines, which produce a very unpleasant reticulation. There
is a mechanical rigidity in the building which is contrary to
the freedom of etching. The indications of cloud are weak
and engraver-like ; they have . nothing of the quality of
liberal and noble art. The group of buildings just behind
the Tour de Nesle is in the highest degree picturesque —
that is, we see that the buildings themselves must have been
picturesque ; but if they had only been reserved for Mdryon,
how much they would have gained in the delineation !
BoiSSlEU. Vue dupont et du chdteau de Sainte Colombe, en
Dauphine, — A battlemented and turreted castle to the right,
with a mountain behind it. Under the castle are a mill and
landing-stages ; then a river with a bridge, and to the left of
the bridge a massive tree ; to the left of the tree a ruin, with
arch beneath. In the foreground a landing-place, projecting
from a stone pier to wooden supports, and near the landing-
place a boat with large rudder, the boat containing barrels,
etc. There are several figures — two men sitting on tiller, man
and woman sitting on end of pier, woman and boy walking
with a dog, man fishing, man standing leaning on his stick.
There is a considerable artistic craft The distances are
kept well, relatively. The foreground is vigorous, with a
tendency to old-fashioned trifling here and there. The
reflection of the boat is careful, the work on the boat
tending to elaborateness, firm and good in light, but in
i66 CALLOT AND BOISSIEU,
shadow needlessly black. The form of the mountain, as in
all art of that time, is wanting in firmness and knowledge.
Entrie du village de Lantilly. — A pale delicate sky with
some indication of cloud, a building to the right, with a
square mass like a tower roofed in the low pyramid form, so
often seen in southern countries. There is a staircase with
a low gable. There is a large tree to the left, with the trunk
partially denuded. The manual delicacy of the work in the
sky is very admirable, but the imitative rendering of the
tree-trunk is puerile, though skilful in a high degree. On
the whole, this is one of Boissieu's best etchings.
Les Tonneliers (the large print). — Scene, the interior of
a wine-cellar. Persona^ four men ; namely, a cooper striking
circles with his hammer, two cellar-men carrying wine in a
tub suspended on poles, a third standing and looking at the
spectator; holding a pitcher on a barrel.
This etching is mentioned for the marvellous imitative
finish in the barrel to the left — not to recommend it for
imitation, but as a curious example of what may be accom-
plished in etching, in that direction, by an artist more skilful
than intelligent.
Vue du Passage du Garillano, en Italie. — A pale sky,
with a few clouds, chiefly to the right A mountain, a city
on a hill in the middle distance, an aqueduct to the right
A river with a ferry-boat ; in the boat a carriage and pair,, a
man on horseback, and several other people. In the fore-
ground, to the left, a horse going to drink at a trough, a
man with him, another man, a woman, two children, and a
dog. In the right-hand corner is a man on horseback,
galloping away.
This is a very perfect etching of its kind. The tone is
most successfully reached everywhere. Many nobler etchers
might be glad of this technical certainty in getting the tone
just pale enough and just dark enough. It is a rare accom-
plishment, even amongst clever men.
CHAPTER IV.
MER YON.
'IXTHEN our enlightened century reflects on the ignorances
and injustices of the past, it is apt to be well pleased
with its own luminous superiority. Albert Durer was
wretchedly poor, and John Milton got an instalment of five
pounds on the completion of " Paradise Lost," but Mr. Frith
and Miss Braddon are paid in thousands. And are not
French artists rich and fortunate now } Has not Meissonier
just sold a picture for six thousand pounds ?
No doubt, on the whole, both artists and writers are better
paid in these days than they have ever been before ; and
although both occupations are more crowded than ever, there
is a better chance now than there was formerly for a good
workman in either to obtain recognition during his lifetime.
But the favour of the public, and the rewards that it brings,
do not always find out and encourage the best men ; and
there has never been an age when an artist of rare and
peculiar power was more exposed to the mortification of
seeing vulgar work liberally remunerated, and noble work
passed in neglect.
The case of Charles M^ryon is one of those painful ones
which recur in every generation, to prove the fallibility of
the popular judgment Mdryon was one of the greatest and
most original artists who have appeared in Europe; he is
one of the immortals; his name will be inscribed on the
noble roll where Durer and Rembrandt live for ever. A few
persons now living know this as well as I do, but these few
belong to a small and highly cultivated class, with which
1 68 MERYON.
the great art public has very little in common. An intelli-
gent writer upon art said, not very long ago, that artists had
no occasion to complain of the public, because, if the matter
were inquired into, it would be found that every artist had
his own public This is, no doubt, in a certain sense true ;
every writer and every artist is appreciated by somebody, if
only he has some sort of talent and accomplishment ; but
for an author or an etcher to live by his work he needs more
than this little group of friends. Three customers will keep
a painter from starving for a year, but no composer of printed
matter could live if he had only three readers. An etcher
is a composer of printed matter, and he needs a public
sufficiently lai^e to remunerate him adequately for his time,
— that is, at least two hundred regular buyers. Now, to
find two hundred regular buyers, he requires ten times that
number of students and admirers ; and it is not always easy
to excite the serious interest of two thousand people. A
public which is not extensive enough to enable its favourite
to live by his labour, is for all practical purposes not a
public at all ; and it is in vain to tell an author that he is
unreasonable to wish for more than a hundred readers, or an
etcher that he is foolishly anxious for notoriety when he is
not satisfied with the approbation of the cultivated few. The
suffrage of the cultivated few is very desirable, and there is
more intellectual and artistic encouragement in the quiet
praise of ten competent persons than in the applause of
multitudes ; but the very love of art itself compels an artist
to wish for a public not only educated, but numerous;
because, without either a numerous public or independent
private fortune, he cannot continue to work. Mdryon was
sorely tried by public and national indifference, and in a
moment of bitter discouragement he destroyed the most
magnificent series of his plates. When we think of the
scores of mediocre engravers of all kinds, who, without one
ray of imagination, live decently and contentedly by their
MERYON. 169
trade^ and then of this rare and sublime genius actually
ploughing deep burin lines across his inspired work, because
no man regarded it ; and when we remember that this took
place in Paris, in our enlightened nineteenth century, it makes
us doubt whether, after all, we are much better than savages
or barbarians. Now that plates can be preserved by steel-
ing, the etchings of a man like Mdryon would sell by tens
of thousands if the world knew their value ; but when such
work as this is set before the vulgar public, it is like casting
pearls before swine.
M^ryon was born in Paris in 1821, the illegitimate son
of an English father. Much of the unusual delicacy of
perception which distinguished him as an artist, is attributed
by M. Burty to maternal influence. He studied mathematics
with much industry and application, and entered in 1837
the naval school of Brest. As a naval officer he visited
many remote shores, sailing even round the world, and
always employing his leisure hours in sketching everything
of interest that came in his way. But, though M^ryon loved
the sea, and had a fraternal affection for sailors, his health
was not robust enough for a life of that kind, and he was
obliged to abandon his profession. Being already an intelli-
gent practical amateur, he endeavoured to become an artist ;
and, with the intention of adopting painting as a profession,
took lessons of M. Phellippes, a former pupil of David. As
a painter, M^ryon did not succeed, probably from anxiety
to produce pictures without the necessary technical education.
Whilst suffering from disappointment in this ambition, he
happened to meet with M. Eugene Bldry, who directed his
attention to etching. M^ryon studied etching for several
months with M. B16ry, and employed this time fruitfully in
the analysis of plates by the elder masters, which he copied
as exercises. This preliminary study was followed by
excursions in Normandy and a visit to Bourges, a picturesque
old city not very far south of the Loire.
I70 MERYON.
Before undertaking the series of original etchings on
which his fame will rest, M^ryon laboriously employed the
art in the translation of other men's work, or in the execution
of more or less uncongenial commissions. What developed
M^ryon was his passionate wish to preserve some adequate
memorial of that picturesque old city of Paris which has
disappeared before the constructive activity of Haussmann
and Louis Napoleon. If old Paris had been likely to
remain a generation or t\v'o longer, it is possible that we
might scarcely have heard of M^r>'on, because half the
quality of his work is due to the intensity of his affection
for remains whose destruction he foresaw with the most
bitter regret, as a near and irremediable misfortune which
he had no power to avert But if an artist cannot save an
old building which he loves, he may at least secure a
memorial of it, a memorial better than the fidelity of the
photograph, because it expresses not only the beaut}*^ of the
thing itself, but the pathetic affection of the one human soul
that cares for it It became, then, the object of this artist
to make a series of etchings in which the old tourcllcs and
quaint streets of Paris should be preserved for future times,
and when he undertook this task he had already made him-
self the most accomplished architectural etcher, not only of
this century, but of all centuries ; not only of France, but of
the world. The opportunity for the exercise of Imperial
encouragement was exceptional and splendid ; and if the
Government had known its duty, M6ryon would have been
commissioned to do perfectly, and on a far more extensive
scale, what he did imperfectly in the face of absolute public
indifference and the stem possibility of starvation.
So, without encouragement of any kind, this great artist
patiently laboured, etching with the strangest and most
novel union of sobriety of manner with depth of poetical
feeling. He printed a few copies of his plates, and left
them with different booksellers and dealers in engravings ;
PLATE VIII.
PALACE OK JUSTICE, AND BRIDGE, PARIS,
Part of a plate by Mekyon.
Copied by the Author.
PLATE VIII.
iTo uc placed opposite pag<; 17a-
Palace oi- Justice, and Bridge, Paris, part cf a
Plate by Mcryon
Copied by the Author
BITINGS.
In Dutch Mi>r^;an'., hcaicJ 1090^ Fahiephe.'
Minutci.
Lightest touches in extreme distance
Sky .
Distant building and paler ripplcii
The remote pepper-lx>x towers
The nearer pepper-box towers
Lighter parts under arches ...
Darker parts imJcr arches with building to tiic left, and farther boa: \
Nearest arcli with nearest boat !
0
to
20
25
45
55
Fir?t proof lr.kcn.
The pl.ite hav-r.g been bitten as in ten J.. I, thc.o was rotV.ing to be do v..
except add a few linj.^ which bidd l-om ^sniiut^b T'lo pinte w.^=^ cnvero'
again ^^^th black ground, and these lines added andLiticn thirty minutes \\\
Dutch mordant.
Second proof Laken.
A few tine lines added m sky and waier with dr\'-po:ni. A few burn
lines inserted here and there under the bridges. The >play of the arclie?
made visible by making the shade lighter with the burnisher.
Plate printed s:mp!y, being wiped with can\-as only, and then ver>' Mighily
rdrctissii in the foreground and dark arch to the left.
MERYON, 171
but the stream of life rolled past in its ceaseless flow, and
paid as much attention to these jewels as the waves of the
Mississippi give to some lost treasure on its banks. This
neglect seems to have produced the first visible symptom of
a mental malady, which clouded, with varying degrees of
darkness, the remaining years of the unhappy artist's life.
After living in the asylum at Charenton, where he continued
in some measure the practice of his art so long as physical
health remained, Mdryon at length passed out of an exist-
ence made wretched by poverty, sickness, insanity, and by
the apathy of an age unworthy of him. M^ryon became
subject to the hallucination that he was surrounded by
crafty and secret enemies, who were constantly plotting
against him.
As an etcher Mdryon was remarkable for great cer-
tainty of hand combined with extraordinary caution. When
at work from nature he' stood, and without support of any
kind, held both plate and mirror in one hand, laying 'the
lines with the other, and so steadily that the most skilful
etchers marvelled at his skill. No work ever done in the
world has been more absolutely honest, more free from
executive affectation or pride of method. He had great
subtlety and delicacy of observation, and a perception of
truth so clear, that it is strange how such bright insight
can have been compatible with any cloud or malady of
the mind. His work was sanity itself, by its perfect
and equal acceptance of various facts, by its patience and
steadiness in study, by its caution and moderation in
manner. Thus, as I pointed out some years ago, M^ryon
was picturesque, but not narrowly and exclusively pictu-
resque ; for when a pure line occurred in a modern or
Renaissance building, he gave it with marked attention to
its especial quality of purity. It is, perhaps, to this very
capacity for appreciating purity that a certain peculiarity of
M^ryon may be due, which has occasioned a doubt whether
172 MERYON.
he ought to be considered a great etcher, in the strict sense,
or a great original engraver. He did not sketch so much
or so freely as good etchers usually do, and there is a
severity in his manner not always compatible with the ease
of true etching. Nevertheless, I class him amongst true
etchers on account of his frank use of the explanatory line,
which is the chief test ; added burin or dry-point work does
not prove impotence with the etching-point, and is little
more than a sort of glaze.
Considered psychologically, the work of M^ryon is highly
curious. It is thoughtful, reflective, intensely personal, and
fiSll of strange hints of a passionate fantasy, secret and sub-
dued. This mental quality, far more than the manual
dexterity of the artist, is the secret of his inexhaustible
charm. He is a sort of enigma for us, which we are always
trying to solve. Victor Hugo, with the clear eye of a poet,
saw at once this mental fascination, and saw that M^ryon
needed to be strengthened by all possible encouragements
in his great struggle with the Infinite — the infinite of Paris,
the infinite of the sea. This was said in Victor Hugo's
peculiar way — he can never write without some allusion to
the Infinite or the ocean — but in this case the word was
not inapplicable. M^ryon was evidently an artist of vast
and vague aspirations, though a dull critic might be pre-
vented from seeing this by the unusual precision of his
manner. Beyond the actual buildings which he drew, there
are suggestions of long and lonely meditation on life and
nature, on time and space, and the bewildering abysses of
immensity.
Le Stryge. — At an angle of one of the towers of Notre-
Dame there is a horned and winged demon who perpetually
contemplates Paris, his head resting on his hands, and his
elbows on a flat ledge of stone. He looks down the Seine
towards the pavilions of the Tuileries, and his stony eyes
MERYON. 173
have watched through the long centuries the changes on its
banks. The face wears an expression of quiet and con-
tented observation ; from the Middle Ages, when this demon
first looked from his lofty post, there has been sin enough in
the great city to afford him uninterrupted satisfaction. He
saw the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and felt warm glad-
ness in his heart of stone whilst the chants of thanksgiving
rose musically in the choir below ; nor was he less inwardly
gratified when the slow processions of carts took the nobles
to the guillotine and the chanting priests were silenced.
Those uncouth ears have heard the roar and tumult of
revolution and the clamour of the near bells that shook the
grey towers in the hour of triumph, when the versatile
priesthood praised God and the powers that be. Nor have
public crimes or public miseries been the demon's only con-
solation. Night after night he hears the low splash when
the suicide leaps into the water, and a steady continuous
murmur of long lamentation and blasphemy.
When Meryon took the Stryge for a subject, it was with
ideas of this kind. If we deduct the malignant feeling which
may be attributed to a demon, the position of one who, from
a lofty height, surveys the life of a great city, is simply the
position of genius relatively to the multitude of men. And
Meryon himself, who was a genius of the order most given
to reflection and solitude, did not draw his demon without
some considerable amount of sympathy. Four ravens are
flying about him in the free air, like the dark and morbid
thoughts that visit a lofty but too much isolated mind ; and
thus, as we know, was Meryon himself assailed.
I am not quite sure whether the obviously false tonality
of this plate may not have been intentional, as the same
fault certainly was in some engravings of Albert Durer ; but
when a critic allows these things to pass in a work which he
admires, his silence may be imputed to ignorance. The
intense black in the street under the tower of St-Jacques
174 MERYON.
destroys the impression of atmosphere ; though at a consider-
able distance, it is as dark as the nearest raven's wing, which
cannot relieve itself against it This may have been done
in order to obtain a certain arrangement of black and white
patches, but it seems unfortunate, and is certainly untrue.
The tower of St-Jacques is, however, very right and beautiful,
and so is the curious distance over the roofs.
La Pompe Notre-Dame, — If -the reader will refer to
Turner's Rivers of France, he will find a subject called the
" Hotel de Ville and Pont d'Arcole," in which the picturesque
object that engaged Turner's attention and induced him to
make the drawing is evidently a curious building in the
middle of the river, and in the centre of the composition.
This building consists of a tower and two wings, and it is
entirely supported on a substructure of wooden scaffolding.
This is the pump which has furnished a subject for M^ryon.
His remarkable precision of hand, and his usually wise
moderation in light and shade, have never been better
exemplified. Take, for example, the exquisitely gentle
curvature in the three main lines of the tower, and the entire
absence of exaggerated blackness throughout the whole plate.
Many of the wall surfaces are in the shade, but it is shade
illuminated by reflection. The intricate arrangement of the
massive carpentry is expressed with evident enjoyment and
a strong sense of construction.
VAbside de Noire-Dame de Paris, — ^The tonality here is
somewhat less accurate than in the plate just criticised, but
the questionable passages are chiefly in the bridge and
houses ; and the cathedral is a wonderful piece of work.
There are, no doubt, many living engravers who could get
quite safely through pieces of architecture not less elaborate,
and many photographs have been taken from this very
position, which, as copies of the building, are much more
mechanically perfect. The value of work of this kind is due
to an exquisite artistic sensitiveness, which has presented
MERYON. 175
the subject to us in such a way as to give it poetical
interest.
TourelUy rue de la Tixeranderiey demolie en 185 1. — ^The
general reader may feel interested in this plate on account
of its subject, which is one of those picturesque corner-turrets
that the Scottish architects borrowed from the French, and
which give so much character to many an old tower north
of the Tweed. This was one of the finest examples which
had escaped destruction down to the middle of the present
century, and its demolition coincided with the erection of the
first Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. From the artistic point
of view this tourelle was worth considerably more than Sir
Joseph Paxton's enormous shed, but its disappearance was
not thought an event of much importance, except by a few
eccentric people, like M^ryon, who do not always estimate
things by a tariff of material values. Readers who intend
to etch may find here much profitable study in the explana-
tory use of lines which constantly follow either the perspec-
tive of surfaces or the direction of shadows ; and the plate
has the additional advantage of showing, in a marked degree,
how moderate and refined is Meryon's understanding of the
picturesque. The stately turret and the free foliage of the
vine about its base would have had charms for any sketcher,
but M^ryon alone could have seen the full artistic available-
ness of the modern chimneys and roof, and the contrasting
value of the ugly modern house to the left The explanatory
use of line has, in one point, been carried a little too far.
There is an attempt to render the appearance of , wood, by a
somewhat puerile imitation of its grain. It may be observed
also that M^ryon's readiness to accept unpicturesque material
has made him a little too tolerant, when he gives us the
bit of wall in the foreground forming an acute-angled triangle
of the most painfully mechanical sort.
La Rue des Toiles, Bourges. — It is not easy to procure
the etchings of M^ryon, which, for the most part, are out of
176 MERYON.
print, the plates having been destroyed ; but the " Rue des
Toiles " was given by the etcher to a friend of his, and I
hired the copper for the Fine Arts Quarterly Review , in which
it appeared in January 1864. The subject is a picturesque
mediaeval street ; and though the etching is not so good as
those mentioned above — for it has been over-bitten, and
there is some confusion in the tonality — it gives, nevertheless,
an idea of M^ryon's qualities as a medisevalist Victor Hugo
is known to be one of his warmest admirers, and these quaint
details have much in common with Hugo's picturesque
descriptions.
Le Pont Neiif, — Early proofs of the latest state in which
all the dry-point work is given, show M6ryon quite at his
best The Pont Neuf is the most picturesque of existing
Parisian bridges ; and however superfluous its projecting
turrets may have seemed to the utilitarian mind, they were
always delightful to artists. This plate has been engraved
for no other purpose than to show two of these turrets to
the very best possible advantage ; they are in full sunshine,
whilst all the rest of the plate is either in subdued middle
tint or sombre depths of shade. From the impenetrable
gloom under the massive arches to the aerial delicacy of the
distant street, there is the widest range of executive resource ;
but whatever has been done either in massive arch, or flow-
ing water, or many-storeyed houses, or clouded space of sky,
has been done always in honour of these two turrets on the
bridge. Even the third turret, that nearest us, has been
sacrificed to them and cast into intentional shade; and
when Meryon comes to the rounding of the far-projecting
cornice, where the gleam of sunshine falls, he follows every
reflection with an indescribable pleasure and care. The
wonder is that the delighted hand could work so firmly here,
that it did not tremble with the eagerness of its emotion and
fail at the very instant of fruition.
CHAPTER V.
LALANNE.
TV/TAXIME LALANNE is the first artist who ever
received knighthood for his qualities as an etcher.
When the King of Portugal conferred upon him the Order of
Christ, it was expressly in recognition of the value of his
etchings ; but the King of Portugal is an etcher himself, and
knows good work when he sees it
No one ever etched so gracefully as Maxime Lalanne.
This merit of gracefulness is what chiefly distinguishes him ;
there have been etchers of greater power, of more striking
originality, but there has never been an etcher equal to him
in a certain delicate elegance, from the earliest times till now.
He is also essentially a true etcher ; he knows the use of
the free line, and boldly employs it on due occasion. So
far his work is very right, but it has the fault of too much
system. Lalanne has reflected much upon his art, and has
decided in his own mind that certain methods are good
methods, and so he sticks to these on all occasions with a
fidelity that amounts to a fault. No one can doubt, on
looking at any plate by Lalanne, for example the one in this
book, that he is a master of his craft, that he quite knows
what he is about, that he is always perfectly safe, and will
make the needle express anything he intends to express ;
but then, on the other hand, there is no reaching of the
mind beyond, no vague yearning after unattempted excel-
lence, nor any of those half-failures that attend undefined
and unlimited aspirations.
N
178 LALANNE.
The defect of too much system may be due in this
instance^ as it certainly was in that of Harding, to the habit
of giving lessons^ Few artists who give lessons escape from
the temptation to invent and apply a definite method to
everything, because such definite methods are the secret of
apparent rapidity in teaching. If a great artist tried to
make an amateur-pupil follow him in his searchings for un-
attempted expressions of unknown thoughts, if he himself
became the " hierophant of an unapprehended inspiration,"
as Shelley said that poets are — and he included painters
amongst poets — then the only consequence would be that
the pupil would be left behind, alone in the pathless wilder-
ness. A teacher who honestly tries to make his pupils learn
something, endeavours to simplify art for them ; that is, he
eliminates the vagaries of special research, and makes art as
systematic as possible. In doing this he runs infinite risk
of spoiling his own art, by abandoning all that he finds to
be unteachable ; in other words, all that is rarest and best.
Rue des Marmousets (Vieux Paris). — A capital bit of
street-sketching. In this street dwelt of old a pastry-cook,
who, with the help of his neighbour the barber, murdered a
man in the pastry-cook's house and made pies of him, which
were highly appreciated by the public. " C'est de tems
immemorial que le bruit a couru qu'il y avait en la cite de
Paris, rue des Marmousets, un p^tissier meurtrier, lequel
ayant occis en sa maison un homme, ayd^ 4 ce par un sien
voisin barbier, faignant raser la barbe : de la chair d'icelui
faisait des pastez qui se trouvoient meilleurs que les aultres,
d'autant que la chair de Thomme est plus delicate, k cause
de la nourriture, que celle des aultres animaux." In M.
Lalanne's etching the lines of the old houses, curving slightly
and leaning back from the street, are followed with much
interest and enjoyment, and every accident in wall or window
is made the most of.
A Bordeaux, — A view of the city of Bordeaux, which has
LALANNE. 179
the honour of claiming Lalanne as one of its distinguished
citizens. One of the least interesting of his plates. No
doubt the cathedral spire and lofty tower with the scaffold-
ing set up all round it are indicated with rare delicacy ; no
doubt the line of houses along the quay is suggestive of
much wealth and large population ; and the long bridge and
the shipping are cleverly put in ; and the boat in the fore-
ground serves, with its black mass, as a vigorous repoassoir.
Nevertheless, the plate is dull, and its dulness is to be attri-
buted, I imagine, to the impervious blocking-up of the view
by that too long and regular line of houses that stretches
entirely across it
Demolition pour le percemeni du Boulevard St-Germain,
— Though the conventional black shadow crosses the fore-
ground, there is great delicacy and truth in the tall tower-
like scaffolding, the houses in the middle distance, and the
beautiful dome of the Pantheon, visible beyond, like a
mountain-crest pale and delicately outlined, seen beyond a
middle distance of rugged cliffs and a foreground of scattered
boulders.
Demolition pour le percement de la Rue des £coles, — The
foreground is dark again under the conventional black
shadow, but a glancing side-light illuminates an irregular
block of houses, bringing their picturesque projections into
strong relief. To the left is a delicate, light spire, probably
that of the Sainte-Chapelle, seen through haze, and executed
like the cathedral of Bordeaux in the plate criticised above.
This spire, and the distant bit of street under it, are full of
mystery, and by their extreme delicacy of tint give great
force to the intentionally rude work in the foreground. It
is a fixed principle with Lalanne to draw near objects with
heavy and open lines, and distant ones with light and close
lines, keeping a regular gradation between the two of gradu-
ally increasing refinement, as the needle passes from the
foreground. Like all good etchers, he is very partioular in
i8o LALANNE.
making his lines explanatory ; the direction of the shading
in this foreground, always various, always carefully thought
out, is an excellent instance.
Vue prise du Pont St.-MicheL — One of the most charm-
ing scenes which the improvements in Paris have opened out
to us, and the most beautiful etching hitherto published by
the French Club. The majestic domes of the new Louvre
rise in their strange, accidental, unaccountable way above
the long line of the great palaces of royalty and art ; the
Pont Neuf is just under them, all in shadow except its
picturesque projections that catch the sunshine, and its grace-
ful curve to the right, where it joins the brilliant quay. Soft
reflections from the noble bridge fall undisturbed amongst
the resting barges ; and groups of trees whose artistic value
the Parisian edile knows so well, stand by the noble river,
having no more fear of the axe than if they sunned themselves
on the loneliest shore of all her hundred leagues.
Aux Environs de Paris, — The foliage is very graceful
and elegant, but the excessive love of waved lines in spray-
drawing has led to some want of woody quality. It is the
garden of one of those delightful habitations where the
dainty taste of the Parisian architect has exercised itself in
the free country, and where a rich man who is aesthetic
enough to know the value of a beautiful dwelling may enjoy
the possession of it in peace.
A Neuilly, Seine, — Notable for the same elegance as the
preceding subject The water is not sufficiently studied, but
the foliage is beautiful.
Paris. Vue prise du Pont de la Concorde, — The largest
etching by the artist, but by no means the best The
indication of distances is true as to tone, but neither the
water nor the foliage is sufficiently studied. The water is
not levels and there is an abuse of straight lines in the shading
of the foliage. The plate is an attempt to introduce etching
as a decoration for walls ; this etching is intended for framing.
LALANNE. i8i
It would be interesting to see further attempts in this direc-
tion, which might make the art somewhat more popular;
but it may be doubted whether it is generally wise to attempt
very large plates.
Chez Victor Hugo, — ^A series of twelve small etchings,
some of which are remarkable for a minute delicacy, obtained
without sacrifice of breadth. The best are the "Salon
Rouge," the "Galerie de Chfine/' the "Chemin^e de la
Galerie de Ch^ne," and the " Look Out" The " Porte de la
Galerie de Ch^ne," and the "Chemin^e de la Salle k
Manger," may also be mentioned. These plates are not
far removed in manner from contemporary English work,
and are as good as the best of Horsley and Cope. As
studies of still-life they are very admirable, but too photo-
graphic in their system of chiaroscuro, often losing detail in
black where detail is still clearly visible in nature. Victor
Hugo inhabited, when in exile, an ugly modern house, the
inside of which he made as romantic as possible, with carved
wood and collections of various kinds. The incongruousness
between the Philistinism of the house itself, and the poetry
of its contents, is very glaring, and would make the place
even more intolerable to any one with a sense of fitness
than a Philistine dwelling consistently furnished on the
principle of Philistinism.
Train de la Gravure d VEauforte (plate 3, opposite page
66, first edition, lowest of the three subjects on the plate). —
M. Lalanne has published a useful treatise on etching, much
better than any of its predecessors, and illustrated by his
own hand. This little landscape-subject is the most delicate
and most graceful landscape-etching ever executed in France
since Claude's time. It is perfectly charming, and well
worth the price of the whole book. The trees are rich and
majestic, the water liquid, the bit of foreground vigorous and
frank, the distance delicate and aerial. It is an epitome of
Lalanne's excellence ; and the only misfortune about it is.
PLATE IX.
(To be placed opposite page 1S2.)
Fribourg, Switzerland, by Maxime Lalanne.
A portion of the original plate.
The following Lil«Ie of Idlings is conjectural, as an acairate register was not
kept at the time, ll will be found, however, very nearly accurate, having been
ascertained by experiment on anotlier copi>cr.
HITINGS.
Nitric acid and water in equal quantities.
Bath (not artificially heated) 65** Fahrenheit.
Minutes.
Extreme distance .....
Di.stant towers, etc.
Street and distance to right .....
Trecii, fountain, and central house, with small kiosk, also upper
buildings to left ...
Deepest lines in foreground
3
6
10
20
30
Tliis plate has probably not been retouched. It was done from nature,
and is a perfect examji^le of 1-alaiinc's manner in onginal sketching.
The nitric acid used is at forty degrees, which means that when ihc/tVt"-
ticidc is set to float in the pure acid, the surlVice of the lifjuid will coincide
with ilie fortieth degree on the register. 'I'his gives the dt^.;ree nf dciwity of
the acid.
CHAPTER VI.
JACQUEMART.
JULES JACQUEMART is the most marvellous etcher of
still-life who ever existed in the world. In the power
of imitating an object set before him he has distanced all
past work, and no living rival can approach him. Jacque-
mart has no invention, little art in composition, and probably
neither a very retentive memory nor any profundity of
thought, but he sees more clearly, and draws what he sees
more exquisitely, than anybody else. He has pushed imita-
tion in etching to the utmost imaginable refinement, and
developed it to the utmost possible force. The union of
these two qualities, force and refinement, was never more
perfect, even in the work of the great men of the past ; but
it must be remembered that Jacquemart, though a true king
in his art, is king of a minor realm. He is amongst etchers
what Blaise Desgoffe is amongst painters, an unapproachable
copyist of matter.
Such copyism as this amounts, in its way, to genius.
The beauties which Jacquemart sees and reveals in a master-
piece of goldsmith's or lapidary's work are for the most part
imperceptible by the common eye. Like a true artist and
poet, he teaches us what to look for ; and we come at last by
his guidance to perceive magic qualities in the precious relics
of the past, till cups of crystal and agate, and sword-hilts, or
chalices of gold, are for us themes of inexhaustible wonder,
objects of unwearied interest and contemplation. I never
knew the glory and beauty of noble old work in the precious
1 84 JACQUEMART,
stones and metals till Jules Jacquemart taught me. The
"Joyaux" of the Louvre were familiar to me, but a veil
hung between me and their true splendour ; and it was only
when Jacquemart had etched them one by one that I learned
to know them truly. An egg of crystal belonged to a
fortune-telling gipsy ; her eyes could see magic figures in its
watery clearness which revealed to her the hidden mysteries
of fate ; often have others looked into it, but always without
apprehending the secret things of destiny. So we have our
precious gems and vases, and we never know their inner
wonder and significance till there comes a genius like
Jacquemart, when suddenly the scales fall from our eyes, and
for the first time in our lives we see I So true is this that
the study of Jacquemart*s etchings has definitely increased
my enjoyment of common objects, such as plate and crystal
on a dinner-table, and the veinings of marble, and the trans-
parencies of jewels ; I apprehend subtle lustres and reflec-
tions in these things which were once imperceptible to me,
and I know that the difference is due to the etchings of Jules
Jacquemart — I know this as positively as a man who has
been successfully operated for cataract knows to what surgeon
he owes the recovery of his sight.
Jacquemart has etched some landscapes and views of
cities which show no sign of remarkable artistic powers. He
has also published a work on book-binding, giving soft-
ground etchings of many old designs, all executed in the
prosiest possible way, and as unlike what he does now as the
ugly duckling to the swan. His portraits are sometimes
clever, and his compositions of flowers still more so, but it is
conceivable that another man might attain the degree of
skill shown in these etchings. When Jacquemart illustrated
porcelain for a work of his father, " Histoire de la Porcelaine,"
he began to be inimitable ; and when he was commissioned
by M. Barbier de Jouy to illustrate the jewels of the Louvre,
he stood at last on his own ground, master of his subject,
JACQUEMART. 185
master of his means^ safe from all human rivalry, a prince in
a little fairy princedom of his own, full of enchanted treasures,
full of gold and opal and pearls, of porphyry and sardonyx
and agate, of jasper and lapis lazuli, all in the deepest and
truest sense his own ; for what rich man ever so truly
possessed these things ?
Histoire de la Porcelainc (plate 6). — The etching repre-
sents a Chinese dinner-plate and two cups. Jacquemart's
principle of imitation has evidently been to give the greatest
importance to local colour, and to admit only just so much
effect as may be necessary to indicate the form of the object
There is effect, however, though often infinitely subtle, in
every etching in the work ; one side of an object is always
more strongly lighted than the other side, and the light in
its passage reveals, by hints of ineffable delicacy, the pro-
jections and hollows of the porcelain. The relation of local
colour to chiaroscuro is here strictly that aimed at by Paul
Veronese, and is precisely the one best fitted for the repre-
sentation of painted ware. There are two personages ; a
lady in her garden, and her lover scaling the wall ; both have
black hair, which, in each case, occurs on a part of the plate
which is in full light, but Jacquemart takes no notice of this,
and makes the hair as black as he possibly can. This is
justifiable because both heads are surrounded by perfectly
white porcelain, which by contrast would make the hair strike
us as two patches of absolute black, even in full light
Histoire de la Porcelaine (plates 14 and 15). — Especially
marvellous for the imitation of texture and surfaces. If the
reader will observe the way in which Jacquemart has imitated
the craqueli and the souffle in the two vases of plate 14, and
the lower part of the tea-pot in plate 1 5, and then study the
rich colouring of the upper part of the $ame tea-pot, he will
agree with me that when etcKers fail to render texture, it is
either because they disdain it, or because they have not
1 86 JACQUEMART.
mastered the art, and not from any defect inherent in the
nature of the process.
Huit £tudes et Compositions de Fleurs, — It is not necessary
to offer special criticism of any of these compositions, but I
may direct attention to qualities which are common to all of
them. The true nature of the petals of a flower has never,
to my knowledge, been so well expressed in art The petal
of a flower, considered simply as tissue, is quite unlike any-
thing we are accustomed to manufacture. It is never of the
same thickness throughout, it is never precisely of the same
shade, it bulges and curls, and softly droops and falls till its
surfaces are presented to the light in a thousand unimaginable
ways. Alone amongst draughtsmen, Jacquemart has fully
comprehended this ; and as his hand, better than any
other human hand, has rendered the hardness of porphyry
and the inflexible fragility of porcelain, so also it has most
truly interpreted the tender shades and complex delicate
lines on which depend the untidiness of the poppy, and the
beauty of the rose.
Gemmes et Joyaux de la Couronne : Plate 2, Vase antique
de Sardoine. — There is nothing in the form of this vase to
merit the labour of Jacquemart, for it resembles a common
pitcher; but as the material was dark and very highly
polished, the whole object is covered with various reflections,
which are imitated with a degree of force and audacity ex-
tremely rare amongst copyists of such things as this. Jac-
quemart had a studio in the Louvre, and there the precious
vases were brought to him ; they stood upon his table till he
had done with them, and the table was near to a window.
This window is reflected over and over again on the polished
surface of the stone, and the reader may observe how much
of the brilliancy of the etching depends upon the contrast
between the white sky in the window-panes and the black
shades where they are not reflected. He may also perceive
the utility of the straight lines of the window-frames, which
JACQUEMART, 187
are here curved in very various directions, and express by
their curvature the form of the surfaces which reflect them.
Gemmes et Joyaux : Plate 6, Vase antique de Porphyre, —
An Abbot of St. Denis had an Egyptian vase of porphyry,
and, wishing to make use of it for his altar, had a great
golden eagle added to it. In Jacquemart's etching the chief
marvel is the imitation of the speckled and polished porphyry,
which is amazing. The wings and neck of the golden eagle
are interpreted with work as simple in manner as an ordinary
pen-drawing, yet clearly expressing the nature of the thing.
Gemmes et Joyaux : Plate 1 8, Vase de Jaspe oriental, —
The goldsmith's work on this vase is attributed to Cellini,
and I mention it for the contrast in manner between the ex-
treme precision of the etching on the golden handles, and the
mystery of mingled veining and reflection in the jasper.
That piece of jasper is marvellously pre-eminent, even in this
catalogue of marvels.
Gemmes et Joyaux: Plate 19, Hanap de Cristal de
Roche. — ^A drinking vessel of the time of Francis I. cut in
rock crystal, in the similitude of a flsh. Of all the substances
Jacquemart has imitated, crystal is certainly the most diffi-
cult, because it affords so few vigorous oppositions. It is
especially difficult when set by itself, in this way, without the
help of a background or of any opaque object for contrast
The power of cutting clearly is a point of sympathy between
the etcher and the carver of the crystal, and the etcher be-
comes for the time, by sympathy, in imagination a crystal-
cutter. When Jacquemart did this he thought of crystal
only, and of copper-plates not at all.
Gemmes et Joyaux : Plate 20, Coupe de Jaspe oriental.
— I think this is the most exquisite cup, in point of form, in
the whole French collection. Observe the sure drawing of
tjie rim, six curves all made different by perspective, and in-
expressibly difficult. See also the different treatment of the
two handles and of the dolphins below the cup.
i88 JACQUEMART
. Gemmes et Jayaux : Plate 23, Drageoir de Cristal de
Roche. — Here is the same perspective difficulty in the draw-
ing of the rim, in still greater complexity. There is a fine
flow in the lines, in the raised centre of the cup, like the
lines that the reins take when a man drives many horses
abreast After etching a bright transparent thing like this,
with such beautiful and elaborate curves, Jacquemart could
etch a wave, if only it would stay for him ; but the condition
of consummate imitative work is always that the subject
must stay to be studied.
Gemmes et Joyaux: Plate 28, Saliere de Lapis LazulL —
There is so much local colour here that when once we have
been told the material, Ve see it as if it had been painted,
with all its depths of azure, and glittering faults of pyrites.
The methods of work adopted here are entirely different from
those used in the preceding subject, for Jacquemart is so
versatile, and adapts his art so readily to the imitation of
various materials, that every new kind of matter exacts from
him the invention of new arrangements of line.
Gemmes et Joyaux : Plate 30, Coupe de Jaspe oriental, —
There is a little group at one end of this cup, Neptune and
Amphitrite, which may be taken as a more than commonly
severe test of Jacquemart's power of drawing. It is very
beautiful ; even the hands, notwithstanding their minuteness,
are given with perfect accuracy. Observe the lightness of
the pale golden trident, and its contrast with the rich dark
of the jasper.**^
• In this portion of the work I adhere to my first plan of describing original
etchings only, but the reader will find in the present edition a section on etching
from pictures which includes an estimate of Jacquemart's labours in that kind.
CHAPTER VII.
CHARLES J A CQ UE.
TD EADERS who wish to know more about Charles Jacque
and his labours than I have space for here, are
recommended to procure M. Guiffrey's " Catalogue of Jacque's
etchings," which was published in 1 866 by Mdlle. Lemaire,
no Boulevard de Magenta, Paris.
Charles Jacque was born in Paris in 1813. At the age
of seventeen he was placed with a geographical engraver,
but did not like the work, and enlisted as a soldier. His
military career lasted seven years, during which he was
present at the siege of Antwerp. After his return to the
life of a civilian, Jacque spent two years in England, where
he worked as a draughtsman on wood ; and these seem
to have been his only absences from France. He had
relations in Burgundy, and during his visits to these relations
he found the material for many of his best etchings.
Burgundy is a very good country for an etcher ; the rustic
life is more than usually picturesque, and there are plenty of
old buildings and bits of good landscape. The true French
picturesque is seldom seen in greater perfection than in
Burgundy ; it exists there in the most profuse abundance,
but in odd places where no one but an artist would know
how to discover it Jacque had the right instinct for material
of this kind, and made good use of it, as many an etching
of his still testifies. His farmyards and scenes of rustic life
are most of them reminiscences of this region, and to me —
who have lived in Burgundy for years — they have a familiar
1 90 CHARLES J A CQ UE.
air, a look of home, which proves that they render not only
the details of local truth, but the spirit of the land.
Charles Jacque is a painter, and a constant contributor
to the Salon. I dislike his paintings for their false and un-
pleasant colour, but he knows sheep and poultry well, and
is a master of rustic life. His skill in drawing poultry may
be partly accounted for by the fact that he is himself a dis-
tinguished fancier and breeder.
Of his quality as an etcher it is not easy to speak briefly.
Some of his works are manly, others effeminate ; some are
imitative, others in a high degree interpretative ; some are
rapid and intuitive, others slow and painfully laborious.
The total result is that he will certainly be remembered as
one of the master etchers of our time. He has etched
more than four hundred plates, and out of these hundreds a
selection might be made which, in its way, would bear a
comparison with much of the most famous work of past
centuries.
Charles Jacque can work, when in the humour, in as
genuine a way as any master whatever, but he is subject to
a hankering after dainties in execution, which are not whole-
some, artistic pastry and sweets, which a masculine appe-
tite ought not to desire. He draws very admirably when
the subject of his drawing is one that he has a great
affection for ; I have noticed, for instance, that in his farm-
yards the utensils are drawn with a degree of truth and pre-
cision very unusual in art, and no man ever drew poultry
better. He does not really draw trees, however, though he
conveys the sentiment of landscape. His deep and sincere
love of simple country-life gives a great charm to many of
his etchings, and is entirely conveyed to the spectator. A
sentiment of this kind escapes analysis, but communicates
itself in a wonderful ineffable way. No artist ever had the
sentiment of rusticity in a purer form than Jacque. This is
quite a different feeling from the great passion for landscape.
CHARLES J A CQUE. 191
and artists who have the nobler passion scorn it The
sentiment of rusticity is strictly a classical one ; that is, it
springs up always towards the close of rigidly classical
periods in art. It is quite natural that Troyon, Charles
Jacque, Rosa Bonheur, and such others, should arise at the
close of the classical movement which ended with Ingres.
Of all the rustic artists Charles Jacque has the simplest and
purest feeling ; and his Parisian contemporaries, who for the
most part are indifferent to the noble landscape-passion
enter without difficulty into an idyllic poetry of this kind.
Notwithstanding our Northern breeding, and the influences
of our recent literature, we may also enjoy a rusticity which
is genuine and sincere.
A PastoraL — A flock of sheep with a shepherd and dog.
Further description is unnecessary, because the plate, although
without title, is the frontispiece to M. Guiffre/s Catalogue.
I mention it on account of the probability that the reader,
if interested in Charles Jacque, will either procure the Cata-
logue or already possess it.
The chief merits of this little pastoral are unity of manner
and simplicity of purpose. It has a delightful appearance
of ease, and belongs to that small class of artistic perform-
ances in which there is, strictly speaking, no study, but only
the results of study. In one sense, we have here the work
of three hours, in another the work of thirty years. The
subject may be taken as representative of Jacque's pastorals
generally ; the landscape is so commonplace as to seem
insignificant, yet its very triviality gives a familiar look of
truth. The only variety in the land is a difference of level
of about a foot, forming a kind of step which repeats itself
on the sheep's backs as they slowly advance together.
There are three or four willows beyond the sheep, and two
young ash-trees on this side of them, but their treatment is
freely interpretative, and the leafage is not more studied
192 CHARLES JACQUE.
than the grass in the foreground, which is represented by a
few open and careless strokes.
Une Ferme (Guiffrey, 1 89). — ^The farm has two gables
and a thatched roof beyond. There are two walls, one to
the left coming near to the spectator, and above which are
seen the trees of an orchard whose branches overhang and
cast shadows down it The other wall is at right angles to
the line of building, and in the shade ; beyond it rise lofty
trees. A flock of sheep, in a state of much hurry and
excitement, are driven by a shepherd and his dog in a
direction away from the spectator ; amongst the sheep are
two cows, and a third cow is driven by another man along
the shaded wall. In the immediate foreground are a cock
and four hens on a dunghill.
This is one of the finest of Charles Jacque's farms ; in
some of them the finish is pushed unnecessarily far, but the
work here is serious and manly. The texture of the long
wall with the gables is as good as Decamps', and the colour,
ing of the roofs and of the dark tree masses is boldly right
and true. The action of the crowding sheep is given with
perfect vivacity. There is an apparent rudeness in the open
shading of the sky which pleases me by its frank avowal that,
although a rough wall may be translated imitatively as to
texture, sky and cloud cannot be. Painters have a supersti-
tion that every subject needs an escape into the remote
distance, and nine men out of ten would have knocked down
the wall to the right and given us, in place of it, a league or
two of landscape. Charles Jacque has acted much more
wisely ; he needed the inclosure as a characteristic of farm-
precincts, and as an element in the expression of homeliness.
PetitSy petits ! (Guiffrey, 187). — A boy is seated on a
board, which rests upon two barrels, and a little girl leans
upon the same board near him. The boy is feeding poultr>^
If this etching had appeared in one of the best publica-
tions of the English Club, it would have borne comparison,
CHARLES J A CQ UE. 1 93
as a specimen of essentially modern finish, with the best
work of Hook or Frederick Tayler; and although the
Germans have made laborious attempts in the same direc-
tion, they have not yet surpassed such work as this. I feel,
however, with regard to this plate, and others of a like quality
by the same master, the same sense of approval, under
protest, which I have already expressed in speaking of
Boissieu and others. The subject is charming, the composi-
tion admirable, and the execution skilful beyond praise ; but
this is not the kind of skill that a noble etcher ought to care
for and aim at These tours de force in soft shading, like
chalk spread with the stump ; these little specks of reserved
light, like touches of white on a lithograph ; these pretty
bits of accurate imitation on hoops of barrel and plumage of
bird, however dexterous and inimitable in their way, are
scarcely worth the toil they cost
If we think of this simply as a picture, our criticism is
disarmed, and we can but do homage to its sweetness and
truth. There is poetry in the very title, Petits, petits !
The children are not artist's models, but real country-
children feeding their favourites, as it seems to us, in some
quiet corner where no one sees them. It is an hour of happy
idleness ; the simple meal is ended, but one morsel of bread
remains which these grateful fowls may share.
UHiver (Guiffrey, 19S). — In the middle of the foreground
a youth is seated with a stick between his legs ; he turns
his head to look at a girl who is driving two cows. He
himself has the charge of eleven pigs. To the right is part
of a pool of water, and above the swineherd the border of a
wood. The etching is signed in the right-hand corner, " Ch.
Jacque, 1864." There is a want of brilliancy in this etching
amounting almost to dulncss. The figure of the swineherd
is easy and natural, but it is the only really good thing in
the plate. There are many trunks of trees which are neither
scientific nor imaginative. The subject is agreeably arranged,
O
1 94 CHARLES J A CQ UE.
but feebly executed. It is pretty, and only pretty — a criti-
cism which equally applies to several other works by the
same artist
Le Labourage (Guiffrey, 182). — A man ploughing with a
pair of horses. The horses are drawn with great truth, and
all the details about the harness and plough are rendered
with careful fidelity. The figure of the man is less success-
ful, and the landscape is somewhat meagre and poor. A
more powerful landscape-painter would have drawn the dark
earth, as it turns over and falls from the ploughshare, with
far greater force than this. The earth here looks as much
like spread hay as the cloven soil.
CHAPTER VIII.
DA UBIGNY.
'1 1 rHEN a critic has been long devoted to the practical
study of art, he may often arrive, by means of
experiment, at conclusions concerning the especial powers of
artists, which must be inaccessible to the pure theorist
Some years ago the present writer had an unfeigned con-
tempt for Daubigny, on the ground of his ignorance or
negligence of form ; but some practical attempts in oil-colour
and etching, to attain the qualities of Daubigny's work,
convinced him that whatever might be the shortcomings or
defects of that artist, he deserved at least our most respect-
ful consideration. The accurate delineation of form has not
been amongst his purposes, and so it has come to pass that
he either cannot draw, or will not ; but let us ever remember
that he has purposes, and that the abandonment of form is a
deliberate sacrifice made for the attainment of these ends.
What Daubigny cares for, and aims at, is an artistic unity
of aspect ; and as he paints or etches invariably for this
unity, thinking of the whole only, and never about parts,
except as portions of the whole, it has come to pass that he
apparently neglects the parts, and so an animal or a branch
may be shapeless, but the picture is not shapeless. Whether
the result attained may or may not be worth such great sacri-
fices, may be doubtful, but it does not seem doubtful to me.
I feel satisfied that Daubigny, both as painter and etcher, has
found his true expression, and that this expression in his
case is well worth the sacrifice of accuracy in form. But
196 DAUBIGNY.
might he not, by perseverance, have drawn better without
missing artistic unity ? I believe not ; I believe that any
attempt to preserve such drawing as is popularly considered
good, would have nullified his whole work, whilst the far
more arduous ambition of thoroughly good draughtsmanship
would have turned his efforts into quite a different channel ;
so that the Daubigny whom we know would have had no
artistic existence. There are many varieties of bad drawing :
there is Daubigny's, which is perfectly honest, and never sets
itself up for more than it is, — nay, which is willing to pass,
and does constantly pass, for even less than it is ; and there
is the laborious and pretentious bad drawing, which is
popularly considered very good, and which always escapes
censure, except from true students. Take, for instance, a
cow, by some popular cattle-painter, with every bone in its
body out of place, and every joint so constructed that an
animal built in that fashion could never walk ; these defects
will not attract notice if only there is a certain appearance
of precision, a certain sharpness of touch, and neat brushwork
on a carefully imitated surface. A cow by Daubigny is not
in reality more badly drawn, but then evcr>'body sees its
shapelcssness at the first glance, because Daubigny has none
of the tricks of the painter who works for the market, and in
the simplicity of a noble artist-nature scorns the little artifices
by which ignorance is concealed. The one thing that he
aims at he secures : he aims at unity, and he secures unity.
This unity of aspect is in reality intimately associated with
unities of sentiment and thought, and springs from them.
Daubigny does not think much, or feel much, about the cow
and the branch : it is the whole landscape which charms and
attracts him ; and in his actual work his attention never
quits the picture to apply itself to this or that portion of his
materials.
The rough, and apparently "unfinished," etchings of
Daubigny may seem easy to the inexperienced, and a certain
DAUBIGNY, 197
proportion of them are, no doubt, failures, even if considered
strictly from the artist's point of view. But if the reader
will study those mentioned below, and then attempt to do
free work in the same sense, and with the same direct-
ness and simplicity of intention and method, he will find the
task more arduous than it perhaps appears. The difficulty
of this simple and straightforward etching consists in its very
simplicity and straightforwardness. When a plate has
evidently been tormented and mended till it came into shape,
there is some hope that by labour and correction we may
arrive at a like result ; but when these means are forbidden
to us by the very nature of the thing to be imitated, the
difficulty is greatly increased. What Daubigny does, as an
etcher, may not seem at first sight very astonishing, but he
expresses himself, and he expresses himself at once. It is
like apt and ready oratory, of which the excellence lies quite
as much in promptitude as in power.
All this may be said without endorsing the weakest and
most trifling etchings of Daubigny. There are several plates,
for instance, in the "Voyage en Bateau," which are too
trifling to be criticised, and in which the facetiousness of the
artist has led to a momentary forgetfulness of art.
Voyage eft Bateati: le Dejetuier d VAuberge, — Five men
are seated at table on rush-bottomed stools, and under a
vine; they are drinking coffee and smoking pipes after
dejeuner. (The first plate of the series, and one of the best.)
As a simple sketch on the copper, this may be taken as a
model for honesty and simplicity of workmanship. The
foliage of the vine is not very good, considered separately
as foliage, but it takes its place well in the composition.
The etching holds well together, and the relations of tone
are unexceptionable. Observe the rapid indication of the
vine shadow on the wall, in free open lines running in the
right direction. The figures are true landscape-painter's
figures, and drawn without pretension.
1 98 DAUBIGNY,
Voyage en Bateau: la Rcclicrche de VAubcrge, — Two
figures, one holding a lantern, are seeking their way in a
dark night. The cabin of the boat is just visible low down
to the left, and there are some dark houses to the right
The sky is cloudy, but there is subdued light in two grey
spaces behind the formless clouds. This is very genuine and
perfect work of its kind, and there are some very fine pas-
sages. The various lights and darks immediately above the
lantern, and especially the obscurity near the cover of it, are
amongst the finest
Voyage en Bateau : Daubigny travail Ian t dans sa Cabitte, —
One of the most interesting, as well as one of the best, of the
series. A gleam of sunshine lights the canvas on which
Daubigny is working, and one or two other canvases which are
leaned against the wall of the cabin. The rest of the
plate is either in shadow or more or less illuminated by re-
flection. The lighting is true and good, and the use of the
etched line everywhere frank and right The reader may
amuse himself by enumerating the contents of Daubigny's
little floating studio. They are not luxurious, and the only
signs of self-indulgence are a rather extravagant supply of
onions and short pipes, and a coff"ee-pot There are also a
gridiron and a frying-pan, and three wine-bottles. These,
with bare shelter and the bed that is turned up in the corner,
are ample materials for happiness, if only those canvases
get on prosperously. Better a little cabin like this, with the
satisfaction of doing good work, than the most splendid studio
in Paris, with an inward conviction of incapacity. I would
rather be Daubigny here, and cook my own dinner and
make my own bed, than be a certain Commander of the
Legion of Honour whom I could name, who, in his palace
of the Champs- Elysdes, is compelled by the devil to paint,
year after year, with the clear knowledge that he is a char-
latan.
Voyage en Bateau : la Nuit sur la Rivikrc. — The boat
DAUBIGNY. 199
is to the left of the etching, lighted by a lantern. The
opposite shore is dimly visible, and both sky and water are
covered with dark shading. There is nothing here but a
sentiment ; and if the mind of the reader is inaccessible to
that sentiment, the etching for him will be meaningless and
absurd. In that case let me beg him to pass it without
bitterness of condemnation. The present writer's experiences
of boats and tents give him the key to Daubigny's motive.
The little cabin is alone on the dark water, under the dark
sky ; the shore is formless, vague, impenetrable. The only
shelter is in that tiny floating house ; the only light from the
candle in that lantern.
Voyage en Bateau: les Aides. — A lot of children with
a small four-wheeled waggon take Daubigny's things for him
to the boat. A sketch of this kind opens the great question
whether landscape-painters ought to attempt figure-subjects
or not. These figures have no pretension to correct draughts-
manship, and yet severe figure-painters are delighted with
them. This may be explained by the fact that, if there is
little power, there is still less pretension. The artist does
not pretend to draw the figure otherwise than as he has been
always accustomed to draw it for the enlivenment of his land-
scapes. The children are beautifully grouped, and the
action of the boy in front is free and lively.
Pare d Moutons : le Matin (A large plate which appeared
in the first number of the French Etching Club's publica-
tion).— The subject is the inside of a sheep-fold at early morn-
ing, the dawn brightening on the horizon above the level line
of paling which crosses the etching from side to side. There
are a few low trees and a little hut on wheels, with a low
swelling in the land, beyond the paling, crowned by some
distant bushes, and a small windmill to the left. The sheep
are grandly grouped, and still seem heavy with sleep. A
long flight of birds is coming from the east The impression
conveyed is dreary and uncomfortable, with a good deal of
200 DA UBIGNY.
solemn and sad feeling. The execution is frank and appa-
rently coarse.
Le Gne, — Twelve cows are just going to cross a broad
river with a herd-boy behind them. A large tree extends
its branches over the water. The opposite shore is bare and
uninteresting.
An etching of this kind is not to be criticised bit by bit ;
its one merit is a certain largeness of aspect Referring the
reader to the earlier chapters of this book for fuller commen-
tary on these qualities, I may say here that the plate before
us is valuable for its frankness and comprehensiveness, not
for any accuracy or beauty of design. The cows are all out
of drawing, the branches are ungraceful, the foliage is ugly,
the sky is coarse, and the distance poor ; yet, in spite of all
these faults, the etching is not only a fine one, but one of the
finest executed in this century. Directness of intention and
amplitude of aspect are perfectly compatible with the most
obvious imperfections in parts.
Les Vendanges (this is Plate i6i in the publication of the
SocMi dcs Aquafortistes), — It is quite a remarkable instance
of Daubigny's obtuseness and inaccuracy as a draughtsman.
The oxen are no more like oxen than sacks of flour, except
that they are decorated with horns. The wheels of the char
resemble nothing so much as very broad-brimmed straw hats
balancing themselves miraculously on the edge of their brims.
All the beauty of the vine leafage is neglected, and the
figures of the vignerons are no better than the oxen. There
are hills in the distance and clouds in the sky, but
both hills and clouds are formless. And still I keep this
etching, and value it, because it is a perfect harmony both
in sentiment and in tone, one of the most absolutely
harmonious plates I know. The least bit of accurate draw-
ing, or of what engravers call "finish," in any one detail,
would have ruined the whole work unless it could have been
DA UBIGNY, 20I
carried out over the entire extent of it.* It is not to be
supposed that Daubigny is quite unable to draw a cart-wheel
or a cow's horn ; and when he drew these in this apparently
puerile way, we may rely upon it that he knew what he was
about. The purpose of this etching has been a certain unity
of aspect, which has been purchased by the sacrifice of many
truths which another artist might have been unwilling to
surrender.
* And even if such finish had been carried out over the whole extent of the
etching, there would have been a definite loss to set against the gain. We should
not have had what we have now, but another thing altogether, not an improve-
ment, but a substitution.
CHAPTER IX,
APPIAN.
A /FY admiration for Appian's work as an etcher (he is a
charming painter also) was already great several years
ago, but the more I see how rare his qualities are in con-
temporary art, or in any art, the more I feel disposed to
value them. His work is always quite easy and graceful in
manner, never strained, never betraying an effort, and it
hardly ever fails to charm by a most delicate feeling for the
poetry of natural landscape. The lightness, or the apparent
lightness, of his hand is such that the wonder is how the
point can remove the ground sufficiently to ensure regularity
of biting ; were he sketching with a silver point on unglazed
porcelain the touch could hardly be more aerial. Although
in etching a real equality of pressure is an unfortunate
necessity, the proof ought to produce the illusion that the
etcher has played piano or forte just as he pleased, and in
the best of Appian's etchings this illusion is complete.
Another good quality in his work is that each plate, however
large or however small it may be, is conceived from the first
as a whole, and the first conception is never departed from
for the disproportionate realisation of some obtrusive detail.
It would be easy to criticise little bits of his work by taking
them separately, easy to say that he does not draw a leaf or
a blade of grass, a kind of criticism the more specious that
it affects to proceed from a superior accuracy of knowledge ;
but the answer is that Appian sees always in masses, and
gives quite as much detail as is consistent with the preserva-
APPIAN. 203
tion of the mass. His drawing of branches and sprays, for
example, whenever they happen to come clearly against what
is behind them, is always perfectly delightful, and quite as
much detailed as it need be, with light and shade hinted at or
expressed almost to the very extremity of a twig. So truly
does he interpret the character of trees, especially of denuded
trees in late autumn, with a few leaves lingering here and
there, that in nature they remind me more frequently of
Appian than of any other landscape-painter. Anybody
whose eye is accurate may in course of time draw branches
and sprays with a photographic truth of detail, accompanied
by that tightness and hardness of execution which are so
common in the works of the younger English painters ; and
it is not very difficult, on the other hand, to get masses
tolerably right in tone when drawing is altogether abandoned ;
but rare indeed is the combination of delicate drawing with
due attention to the large pictorial relations ; rare indeed is
the good taste which can suggest a beautiful detail exactly
where it is needed, without ever making it too obtrusive or
too conspicuous. It would be an injustice to limit this praise
to Appian's execution of trees, though it is here that the
elegance of his taste is most evident He is fond of rocks
and stones, and makes them substantial enough (in his
pictures the rock-texture is always as good as it can be), but
nobody can make a rock elegant. The finest of all Appian's
qualities, however, is a certain poetry of sentiment which
pervades his subjects, especially his river-subjects under even-
ing light. In these he becomes truly the artist-poet, and, as
there is a perfect harmony between the dreamy sentiment
and the effortless execution, the effect of the work is marred
by no harsh accent.
I. A large plate, the engraved surface of which measures
14^ inches by 8^, the copper being very much larger. The
subject is a rocky river-bed in summer when the stream has
ceased to flow. A man on the right is drawing a net from
204 APPIAN.
a deep pool. In the right centre of the composition is a
bridge with two arches, and to the left there are gfreat over-
hanging masses of rock which cast broad shadows.
This is a very fine study of rocks and little else. The
figure and net are beautifully introduced, and both water
and sky are well treated, but not important, except as quiet
spaces with a little variety in them. The beetling masses
of rock, with their vast shadows, are everything in the
picture, and are studied with much thoroughness, fractures
and alL Rocks are not generally a very grateful subject of
study. They stand still to be drawn, which is something,
and they afford fine shadows, but it is always extremely '
difficult to make them interesting. The interest of this
rocky river-bank lies in the fact that the huge stony masses
overhang and seem to threaten.
2. A plate about the same size as the preceding. It is
a study of a more open stream with small rocks. The rising
bank to the left is covered with copsewood, out of which rise
two young trees (oaks apparently, at least the nearer one)
almost entirely denuded of their leaves. In the distance is
a rising land, with two cottages to the right There are
clouds in the sky. In the foreground are ducks and a drake
flapping his wings.
This is one of the most masterly of Appian's etchings in
execution, and so harmonious in tone that I conclude it
must have been done from one of the artist's pictures. The
sky and distance are delightful in quality, the sky apparently
sketched in dry point, and the bur removed. The distance,
which is bitten, has almost the softness of oil. The foreground
of course is much more strongly accented, with black shades
here and there. The reader may observe with advantage
the art with which the water is shaded, its lightest space
being small and very central, and the skilful management of
what is intended to be distinct and what is intended to be
confused. The drake, for instance, and the tree to the left
APPIAN. 205
are distinct things amidst a good deal of delightful mystery
and confusion, and both are very beautifully drawn.
3. Souvenir, — Easily recognised by a windmill in the
middle. To the right of this is a sailing boat, to the left
another windmill. On a rocky bank to the right is a build-
ing with a low tower, like a remnant of feudal times. All
this material is reflected in calm water.
Nothing is more difficult than the treatment of the sky
in etching, and the best way generally is to leave the open
sky quite blank, preserving thus its serenity at the expense
of its gradation. If any shading is attempted it must not
be mechanical, which would be fatal to the harmony of the
plate. In the present instance the sky is shaded in fine
taste with strokes, generally horizontal in tendency, but never
stiffly horizontal. As the sky is lightly bitten the effect is
good.
^. Au Valromey (A in). — A little stream, with rocks and
trees, and the slope of a rocky hill.
Some of the shadows here are overbitten, especially one
to the left, which is far too black. The quality of the
foliage, wayward sprays and branches, rocky ground and
sky, is delightful.
5. A very small plate, the engraved portion measuring
4^ inches by 2^ inches. The subject is a country path or
wild road, with a single figure coming towards the spectator.
Behind the figure is a group of poplars and other trees, lower
and more massive. To the right is a rising ground ; to the
left a pond, with land rising behind it. The sky is lightly
shaded, and a few clouds are sketched near the horizon.
The signature is in the upper left-hand corner, with the date
1865.
This little etching is one of the best examples of Appian's
charming way of treating what is generally thought common-
place and uninteresting scenery. Out of the undulations of
a country which is only just not perfectly level, with a few
2o6 APPIAN.
poplars and a pond, he makes a little gem of landscape, to
be treasured and remembered.
7. Une Mare. Environs de Rossillon, — One end of a
solitary pool of water in rough ground. A stork is standing
by the pool, and there are wild stems and branches in the
upper part of the composition, which is an upright one. In
the left-hand upper corner is the signature of the artist, with
the date 1867.
This has always seemed to me the most exquisite piece
of free branch and stem drawing in the whole range of French
etching. It is this, and much more than this ; for not only
are the trees full of an inexpressible waywardness and grace,
but the whole work — the bit of rocky bank, the little inlet
of calm water, the sweet distance, and the delicate sky ; all
this material forms a perfect harmony, presented to us with
the true passion of a tender and sensitive artist No one
but an artist can know how much this little place must
have been loved before it could be etched so.
8. Marais de la Burbanche {A in), — In the middle of the
composition is a rock or big boulder-stone, with smaller
stones to the right, and similar ones in the distance. Near
the central one is some light foliage. To the left the ground
rises suddenly in a steep bank. There is water in the fore-
ground resembling a calm pool in a stream, and by the
water are three storks. The sky is lightly clouded, and
in the left-hand upper corner is the date 1868 after the
artist's signature. The general effect is that of a calm
evening.
One of the loveliest and most perfect bits of quiet land-
scape of a melancholy kind I ever met with. Nothing can
be more harmonious than this etching, it affects the mind
like music.
9. Un Soir Bord du Rhone a Rix {A in), — One bank of
the Rhone only is seen, with hills beyond, which are reflected
in the calm water. A boat is just coming to land with
figures and small animals (sheep, I think). The sky is
charged with rain-clouds. Dated 1869.
Fine in feeling and quite masterly in execution. One of
those scenes which ought to make anybody a poet, at least
until the last light has died out of the west, and the shinii^
river is finally darkened for the night I like the sobriety
which can abstain from exaggeration of the bills — they have
truly the faill-poetiy and not the mountain-poetry, which is
very different
I o. Un Soir dA utomne Environs de Rossillon. — A reach
of a narrow calm river with boats close to the land, and a
Agure in one of them ; the ground is nearly flat, but rises
gently to the lef^ where there are trees. The distance is
dark and vciy mysterious. The sky is clouded, and the
plate is dated 1874.
The kind of poetry with which this etching is chained as
fully as Uack and white art ever can be is quite peculiar to
our century. Painters have felt the charm of twilight from
the early days of th«r art in Italy, but it was another charm
than this. It was the richness and peace of twilight which
they loved, the deep golden glory of it, if that can be called
glory which has no radiant splendour, but only a wondrous
glow, suffusing everything with that warmth of colour which
fills the air on a southern summer eve. Here we have the
poetry of another twilight, — of grey clouds, and purple
distances, and red leaves darkening in the bron'U of the
nearer woods, the sad twilight after rain in autumn, when all
the earth is wet and chilled, and the pools in the marshes
fili Here am I writing of colour as if the print before me
were not in mere black printing-ink, which I suppose it must
be chemically, but it brings the colouring of such a scene as
vividly before the " inward eye " as a picture to the actual
^^^ sense.
CHAPTER X.
CHIFFLART.
T N the first edition of this book Chifflart was not studied
in a separate chapter^ but had only a paragraph amongst
minor etchers. A more extended notice appears to be due
to him, because his plates are, at the same time, very original
in conception, and very pure examples of a particular kind
of technical work in etching. He is far indeed from being
faultless, and is not at all what a severe and prudent critic
would recommend as a " safe man," but with all his errors
he has really something to express, and expresses it with the
utmost directness. Suppose a man of active and wild imagi-
nation, who sits down with a large copper before him, waits
a little till a scene or an action presents itself to the inward
eye, and then sketches it as quickly as possible on the copper
itself without any intermediate memoranda, before the
imaginative conception has lost anything of its vividness.
This is Chifflart's manner of working, at least in the plates
I intend to speak of here ; and now let me say something that
needs to be said about the way in which criticism ought to
deal with work that is so produced. It would be most
unjust to require from it the qualities which belong to
thoughtful and painstaking labour, which gives days or weeks
to the elimination of its own errors. The model is not called
in that the artist may correct the mistakes of his memory
and imagination by a reference to nature, nor does he finish
his shading any more perfectly than his design, for if he did
there would be one of those executive contradictions which
CHIFFLART. 209
destroy the harmony of art. If one of these hurried impro-
visations, in which the forms are all confessedly imperfect,
were to be shaded as Le Rat would shade a finished head
after Bellini, the result would be unendurable. Chifflart is far
too completely the artist to tolerate the slightest approach to
false finish * of any kind ; therefore, when he improvises, he
shades just as he draws, hewing out the forms by means of
shadow, but no more. The drawing is everywhere inaccurate,
yet not more inaccurate than the drawing in the hasty sketches
of the great masters. That of Rembrandt is often equally
imperfect, that of Michael Angelo occasionally. Michael
Angelo's rough sketch of the " Fall of Phaeton " is even more
shapeless, especially in the animals (which have puddings for
bodies, with impossibly small heads and legs all out of pro-
portion), than the worst of Chifflart's sketches.
I. Surprise, — Six horsemen surprised by lionesses. The
men are naked, but armed with spear and bow. One horse
and man are down, under the feet of the others. A lioness
has seized the man on the nearest horse, whose companion is
attempting his deliverance. His horse, in turn, is attacked by
another lioness, which two riders are going to spear. An
archer on horseback is aiming at a lioness bounding through
the air.
Grandly composed and full of movement The energy of
the action will seem over-strained to a cool spectator who
does not realise the scene ; and everything is indeed over-
accentuated in the drawing, but it is grand genuine work, full
* What I mean by false finish is a superficial finish applied to anything which
has not yet been prepared to receive it. It would be false finish to polish a statue
before it had been hewn into the proper shape. It is false finish in painting to
attend to surface before you have got things into their places. It is false finish in
education to advance to subtle and delicate distinctions before broader and simpler
ones have been fully apprehended. In the work of mechanics the file precedes
emery paper, and a coarse file precedes a fine one. The only finish which is worth
anything is that which comes when everything has been prepared for it ; then it is
well worth having, if rightly applied, both in etching and other arts.
P
210 CHIFFLART.
of right abstraction, and so honest that the most glaring
mistakes have been corrected without effacing, the consequence
being that a man's wrist is in two positions at once, and one
lioness has four ears. Men and animals are full of expression.
The nearest horse is mad with fear, the men are full of valour,
the wild beasts eager, agile, ferocious.
2. Un Jour de Reco^npcnse, — A classical distribution of
rewards, seen from a grotesque point of view. A struggling
crowd is fighting its way up to the temple of Fame, where a
radiant priestess is holding out laurel crowns, whilst trumpeters
blow their trumpets. Raised high above the contending
crowd, laurelled, white-robed, and holding palms in their
hands, sit the few who have been successful. The unsuccess-
ful are either elbowing and crushing each other, or else
abandoning the contest with vacant or dejected faces.
This is so sketchy that you can hardly make the figures
out, but it is full of grim humour. The faces of the stupid
bloated man, and the thin, peevish, disappointed man, who
have abandoned the contest, arc both capital.
3. Tlie Sarcophagus, — A classic sarcophagus in a grove,
with a meagre, sad-faced man seated and leaning upon it ;
another behind showing his naked shoulders ; and a third on
the sarcophagus itself ; this last perhaps supposed to be carved
in marble.
The seated figure is very finely conceived, and the whole
composition is powerful. The shoulder-blade of the man
behind is unpleasantly salient, but the thinness of the seated
figure is not without grandeur. The plate is simply and
powerfully bitten.
4. Pluttis, — A hideous figure is scattering coins from a
horn of plenty. I think this is not Plutus, but only his
minister ; the god must be the personage lightly outlined in
the upper sky, who holds a scourge in his right hand with
extended arm. Men are praying and fighting for the coins ;
one is stabbing another; strong men are wrestling on the
CHIFFLART, 211
ground where the gold is scattered ; women are exposing their
bodies. A mask, which has fallen off, is lying on the ground.
This plate certainly exhibits some of the worst effects of
the struggle for wealth, but it is incomplete, morally, by its
omission of the good effects. The desire for gold does not
only produce murder and fornication, but also many an
honourable industry and many a marvellous art
5. Perseus and Androtneda, — Perseus is just driving his
lance into the monster, and Andromeda, naked, with flowing
hair, is still fastened to the rock by her wrists. The action of
Perseus is fine but not new. The beast is suitably heavy and
monstrous, something between a bear and a hippopotamus.
The bending of the lance is a good idea. Andromeda is
heavy and ungraceful, the left leg especially shapeless from
the knee to the foot Surely Perseus would never have asked
Cepheus to let him marry such an Andromeda as that
6. PersetiSy having slain Medtisa, holds out her severed head,
— ^The right foot is on the gorgon's body, the left on a plateau
of rock. Perseus is sheathing his sword with his left hand.
This is the best and most thoroughly studied figure amongst
the improvisations, but it is ^pose which the etcher may have
studied in nature previously, and remembered. It is a good
instance of a simple way of treating the naked figure when
truth of texture is not aimed at The texture here is rather
that of bronze than of flesh. It is possible that some readers
may conclude from this and other plates that etching cannot
render flesh texture, but this would be an error. In hasty
sketching it is very difficult to convey the idea of texture if
you shade enough to indicate the modelling, because any
coarse or hard shading ruins it at once. The best way is to
leave white paper to do duty for flesh as much as possible
when you have not time to shade delicately.
CHAPTER XI.
LALAUZEy VEYRASSAT, MARTIAL.
lyr ADOLPHE LALAUZE is one of the most skilful
original etchers in the modem French school, but he
has not yet produced very much. The best of his works are a
little series of ten plates entitled Le Petit Monde^ representing
the occupations and amusements of children. We learn from
a preface by M. Montrosier that the artist's own children were
the models from which he drew, so that he worked with a
double affection, the artistic and the paternal in one. The
result is very charming, the little incidents are really such as
occur in child-life, and they are presented with the most
accomplished skill. There are two little girls tind a baby,
besides a doll and a dog. The incidents all take place at
home, in a pretty French appartcinent with polished inlaid
floors and tasteful furniture, which is all lovingly studied as
so much still-life, though in due subordination to the figures.
Most of the little groups are prettily composed, and one or
two quite beautifully. Amongst the incidents are such subjects
as the " Drawing Lesson," the " Music Lesson " (in which we
see nobody but the two little girls, studying as earnestly as
possible), " Baby's Soup " (an administration of soup to the
young gentleman), " Baby is very good " (in which baby is in
his cot, and one of his sisters amuses him with a bunch of
currants, whilst the other plays on the mirlitoti). All these
plates are treated with the most perfect technical mastery,
combining great ease of manner with a brilliant truth of both
texture and tone. The last-named plate especially is a fine
LALAUZE, VEYRASSATy MARTIAL, 213
one, beautifully composed, and full of surpassingly good
qualities in execution. It would be a great mistake to suppose
that because the subjects of this little collection are taken
from the nursery, whilst the plates themselves are popular
with children, they are unworthy of serious criticism. On the
contrary, the artist has done his best with them, and made
them works of art in the higher sense.
Veyrassat's labours as an etcher may be divided into two
parts — his copies from pictures, and his original designs on
copper. The latter alone concern us in this place. He has
etched a few rather large plates, such as " Le Bac " (the ferry-
boat), which are skilful and manly in workmanship ; but by far
the most delightful of all Veyrassaf s etchings are the little
ones. There are ten or a dozen of them which I would will-
ingly have described in detail, were it not that they are all
executed upon precisely the same principles, and are really
the same etching in different forms ; I mean that the artistic
problem to be resolved is the same in the different little plates.
It will be enough, therefore, to explain what the problem is,
and to show how the artist has overcome the difficulty of it in
any one of these instances.
A great secret of success in etching is to keep the arrange-
ments for chiaroscuro simple, and to have a few kinds of
texture as different as possible from each other, in order to
obtain striking contrasts. Veyrassafs scale, in his small etch-
ings, consists mainly of four notes, an intense black, for which
a black animal is introduced as a pretext, two middle tints
for earth, hay-stacks, loaded carts, lighter animals, and part of
the sky, and lastly a very pale tint for the sky alone. At the
top of the scale the blank paper takes its place as the highest
treble. Then, in textures, wc have about four textures kept
very distinct, and all equally well done. Black velvet in the
black animal, a coarse liny texture for foreground earth and
vegetation, a much softer and closer texture for such things
as hay-carts at a little distance, and lastly a very fine delicate
2 T4 LALA UZE, VE YRASSA T, MARTIAL.
texture for skies. Now the reason why these etchings are so
charming as technical music is because the artist has thoroughly-
mastered these few elements of effect, so as to use them in all
their strength of contrast, and yet at the same time in perfect
harmony, and as he works with few and widely-separated
means of expression, they do not get confounded together by
miscalculations in the biting. It is impossible to be more
judicious ; the only wonder is that such a skilful artist should
be so little adventurous, and rest contented with the repetition
of one success. It remains to be observed that, with reference
to natural truth and idyllic charm, few artists of the modem
rustic school have so happily expressed themselves. All
Veyrassat's groups of animals and peasants in the field are
full of nature, and of art also, the art being successfully con-
cealed, except in such very obvious points as the perpetual
contrast of a white horse with a dark one.
Martial is an etcher of extraordinary industry. His collec-
tion of etchings on old Paris contains no less than three
hundred plates, and besides this great work, he has published
several other collections, such as the Salons of 1865, 1866, and
1868, Paris in 1867, Paris during the Siege, Paris Burnt, Paris
under the Commune, the Women of Paris during the War, the
Sailors at the defence of Paris, Les Pnissiens chez nous, eta
The first etching I remember seeing by Martial was the " Porte
de la Sacristie dti Coll(^ge d Bcauvais" and that etching was so
very conscientious, besides being such sound work, that I after-
wards studied everything by the same artist whicli happened to
come in my way. There is some very rich and perfect work in
the Tourelle de VHdtel Schomberg. In the Rue du Pantour St.
Gervais the curious slope and curvature of the old Parisian
house-fronts are quite rightly felt and rendered ; and in the
Rtu dcs Prkheurs a gothic carved tree at the corner of the
house, bearing ecclesiastics for fruit, is imitated with much
delicacy. As might be expected from the usual effects of
practice, M. MartiaFs labours have developed great manual
LALAUZE, VEYRASSAT, MARTIAL. 215
skill. He has mastered, and mastered long ago, the technical
difficulties of etching, so as to express himself fully in the art
without being hampered, as less accomplished men are
hampered, by the torturing sense that they are saying less
than they mean, or something else than the thing they mean.
The fine arts are like spoken languages in that. Until you
have become absolute master of a language, you cannot speak
it at all without either saying less than you intend or something
else than that which you desire to say ; but a master expresses
his thought with simple precision. The technical skill of
Martial is extraordinary, and a few years ago, before skill in
etching became more general in France, he had scarcely an
equal in this kind of ability. For example. Martial would go
to a gallery of pictures and make sketches there in his note-
book, and afterwards go home and take several large plates
of copper, and write on the copper an account of the pictures,
and illustrate it as he went on by many sketches of them
etched in the text, feeling quite sure that every one of the
sketches would be successful. What would happen to most
men if they attempted such a feat would be this : — One of the
sketches on each copper would perhaps be successful, and the
rest comparatively failures : so that to preserve the successful
bit it would be necessary to cut all the rest of the copper away.
Martial's Lettre sur TEauforte was a feat of that kind. On
four large plates he gave a written account of the old process,
quite complete as to that process, and illustrated it as he went
on, throwing a sketch in here and there, exactly where it was
wanted, and all the sketches came quite right. Many another
feat of cleverness has he accomplished. In one of his plates
we have a great Parisian shop-front, with everything seen
through the windows exactly as things are seen through plate-
glass ; and the obscure interior of the shop seen through the
open door: and then the positive clearness of the outside of the
house, with its windows, and gas-lamp, and the architectural
decorations about the arched entrance at the corner, and the
2i6 LALAUZE, VEYRASSAT, MARTIAL.
local colour of the paint, altogether as ungrateful a subject as
an artist mi^ht be condemned to execute — vet rendered with a
simple, straightforward mastery over a hundred difncultie&
Another very* remarkable etching of the same class though on
a smaller scale^. represented some houses at the angle of the
Boule\'ard des Capucines and the Rue de la Paix, now demol-
ished 'including Tahan s shop\ In this plate, all the relations
of light, and most of the local colour too, were given with re-
markable precision, whilst the dra\('ing was neat and firm, as
drau-ing must be to deal successfully with modem street archi-
tecture. The recollection of many other plates by Martial
enables me to give an estimate of him as an artist, which, as his
manner is entirely formed, will probably continue to be accu-
rate. His two best qualities are a brilliantly clear conception of
facts and perfect manual skill He has no creative imagination,
nor any tenderness ; and therefore his work, though always
admirable, can never be charming ; never have any hold upon
the heart. But notwithstanding this restriction, it is eminently
valuable work in its own way, and future students of the
histor>- of Paris will be, or ought to be, verj- grateful for it
This is historical art in the truest and best sense, genuine
history- of what the artist has witnessed, first of that old Paris
which Napoleon HI. demolished, and then of those other and
more fearful demolishin:;S executed bv shell and flame.
Centuries hence such records will still be interesting, indeed
the longer they are preser\-ed the more interesting will they
assuredly become.
L AL AUZE. La Leqon de Dcssin. — Two little girls are seated
before tivo chairs, and very busily engaged in drauing. This
etching deser\-es especial attention for its extreme refinement
in interpreting the quality of things. It quite belongs to the
highest class of object-study, that in which imitation is not
slavish but artistic and intellectual The treatment of all
textures is admirable here, but I think the golden glittering
LALAUZE, VEYRASSAT, MARTIAL. 217
mystery of the picture-frames is the most unusual in the
degree of its refinement Lalauze truly sees as an artist, not
fixing his attention upon one element of appearances to the
detriment of the rest, but seeing the whole together, indicating
just what is really visible at the distance, and not the smallest
detail more. A gilt picture-frame is an excellent test of this
peculiar capacity for seeing, since we know far more of the
constn^ction of a frame than we ever see at once, and the
temptation to draw from knowledge rather than sight is very
strong, on account of its far greater facility. The great
technical merit in M. Lalauze's work is its surpassing truth of
texture, and this is not obtained at any very great cost of
labour, but simply by thoroughly understanding the nature of
the appearance to be interpreted. In this plate we have the
dress and hair of the little girls, the oak parquet and chairs,
and the wall with the picture-frames, all perfect in their way.
I hope, however, that the reader will not conclude, from the
space just given to praise good texture here, that I attach
more importance to it than it deserves. It gives a great charm
to etching, and to painting also, a charm which has never been
more appreciated than in our own day, when it is even one
of the first essentials to any considerable popularity ; but there
has been great etching, and great painting too, without any
texture whatever. A higher merit in M. Lalauze is to under-
stand the nature of children so perfectly as he does, and to be
able to draw them without falling short of expression on the
one hand, and without caricaturing it on the other.
Veyrassat. Making a corn-stack, — A tiny plate measur-
3^ in. by 2 in. A cart with three horses is near a stack and
unloading. Three men are on the stack and one on the cart
There are two white (or light grey) horses, and one dark horse.
This may be taken as one of the forms of the Veyrassat
etching. The dark horse supplies the low note, the pale
cloudy sky behind the figures gives the treble, and the inter-
ai8 LALAUZE, VEYRASSAT, MARTIAL.
mediate tones are supplied by the landscape, stack, cart, and
upper sky. Although the plate is so small, the texture of the
foreground is very coarse and open, which affords a stroi^
contrast with the textures of the stack and animals, and these,
again, very different from each other, are both very different
from the sky. It is in fact a quartett of textures playing to-
gether harmoniously, and the difficulty is not so much to
imagine these various modes of execution as to mak^ them
yield their strong contrast without a discord.
Martial. Tht&tre du Vaudefilk.—K lai^e plate repre-
senting one of the prettiest street comers in new Paris. Pub-
lished in 1868.
This is a very good example of the strong, clear realism
with which Martial interprets a subject All is drawn with
the most perfect firmness, and nothing shirked. The straight
lines are ruled as in mechanical draughtsmanship, but no
merely mechanical draughtsman could have put in the sculpture
as it is given here, nor the trees and living figures. On the
other hand, it would be difficult to find another artist who
would patiently copy all the details which Martial has
copied, such for example, as the lettering of the signs. To
the right we have Bigtwn, Glacier, Restaurant de Foy ; to the
left Salotts du Cafe Americain; and between these a great
number of other inscriptions, all as legible as they would be
in a photograph. So the panels in front of the Restaurant
de Foy are copied with perfect accuracy. But although
details are so strictly attended to, the plate produces a strong
effect at a little distance also. No etching conveys more
perfectly the idea that you are in modem Paris.
\' V'ly c-idd go through such a piece of work as this
w I ' roughly matter- of- fact in his ways of seeing
;imi icviir' - ■:. prose of the most resolute kind, without a
I that surprises me is that photography
(cnted this kind of work by doing it still
LALAUZE, VEYRASSAT, MARTIAL. 219
better. All that Martial attempts here the photograph can
do more thoroughly and completely still. And yet it seems
as if so far from discouraging this etcher by anticipating his
peculiar work, photography had positively been accepted by
him as a teacher. There are evident signs of a photographic
influence here, in the black shadows under the balconies, for
instance, the black spaces in windows, etc, and the black tree
near the theatre, all in strictly photographic chiaroscuro. The
reader will understand, however, that I have not selected this
plate as showing the limits of M. Martial's abilities, but his
exceptionally matter-of-fact temper. There are a hundred
plates of his which show more delicacy, and many which give
proof of a more desirable kind of power.
CHAPTER XII.
VARIOUS FRENCH ETCHERS.
QUEYROY, COROT, BRACQUEMOND, GAUCHEREL, FEYEN-
PERRIN, LEGROS, BR U NET-DEB AINES, DE ROCHEBRUNE,
CHAUVEL, CHAIGNEAU, ABRAHAM, VILLE\1EILLE, BAL-
FOURIER, SOUMY, DE LONGUEVILLE, BALLIN, LANXON,
DETAILLE, DE NEUVILLE.
"jLTAVING studied in some detail a few of the more
eminent French etchers, I now find myself restricted,
by the limits of this volume, to a simple mention of the
others, and of some of their principal works. It may easily
happen that artists thus hastily alluded to may in future
years distinguish themselves more than they have hitherto
had time or opportunity for doing, and so deser\'e separate
chapters in some future treatise on the art, written by another
critic who will have the advantage of seeing our age from a
greater distance. It is always difficult to be strictly just, and
in this case the difficulty is greatly complicated by the fact
that etchers have had to be selected quite as much because
their plates were striking examples of very different styles of
work as for qualities which may be considered meritorious.
The activity and energy of the French school are so great
that every year adds new names to the list, and ever>' year
some etcher already known to the public finds his relative
position altered, either by his own labour or the labours of
his contemporaries. It is therefore utterly impossible to give
an account which shall remain permanently true of a school
VAJRIO US FRENCH ETCHERS. 2 2 1
which, being full of life, has life's incessant transformations.
When etching was a dead art it was possible to sit down and
give a systematic and proportionate account of its past his-
tory, but now that it is alive again, and more vigorously alive
than ever it was before, the history which is complete when
written will be behind the age a year after publication. It is
as unsatisfactory in this respect as a " Diciionnaire des Coii-
temporaifisr
The transition from amateur to artist is always a very
difficult one to accomplish, even when there are perfect leisure
and liberty for study, accompanied by an industry not to be
discouraged. About fifteen years ago M. QuEYROY was an
amateur, but by hard work and perseverance, accompanied
by the kind of talent which consists rather in seeing things
clearly as they are than in the gift of invention, he has become
an artist of considerable skill. The etching of his which, on
the whole, is the finest, is a large plate of Loches, This plate
is good, especially for its breadth of light-and-shade, and its
noble simplicity of treatment The near dark tower to the
left is as grand as it can be, and the water is very good and
true, but there is a trace of old amateur practice in the fine
old gateway which is glaringly out of drawing on account of
its bad perspective* M. Queyroy does not seem to have
studied perspective scientifically, which, for the representation
of architecture, is an omission much to be regretted. Another
thing which I observe in this generally noble plate of Loclus
is that the etcher has been too ready to substitute straight
lines for what in the reality would be varied or interrupted
lines. For example, the roof of the old gateway and that
of the round tower nearer to the foreground are both outlined
with straight lines; in the real thing they would certainly
have been broken by the tiles, and very probably also in-
* The side of the gateway which is in shade is nearly right. That which is
lighted is altogether wrong, because the lines, if prolonged, would never reach
what ought to be the vanishing point
933 VARIOUS FRENCH ETCHERS.
fleeted by the yielding of the woodwork under them. Mr.
Ernest George has dra\vn the same gate, and gives it a very
picturesque outline, perhaps exa^erated ; but if so, exagge-
rated in the artistic direction as this in the mechanical The
tendency to ruled lines in M. Queyro/s manner is also very
marked in his vast plate of the magnificent House of facqius
Caur at Bourges, which is quite an architect's rendering of a
building — clear and good of its kind, yet not like the etching
of painters. Notwithstanding these criticisms, however, which
I print merely because they may be of some use in directing
the attention of other etchers to possible causes of imperfec-
tion which may be very easily avoided, I am far indeed
from undervaluing M. Queyroy's work. His etchings, already
very numerous, will possess a lasting interest as records of
old France He is always animated by an honest love of his
subject ; he has also quite sufficiently overcome the diffi-
culties of art to express himself with perfect clearness. The
Rue dcs Artnes at Bourges is one of M. Queyroy's most per-
fect plates. The Rue dcs Artnes is an old street vrith
tourelles, and both mediaeval and modern houses, which M.
Queyroy has etched with equal care — rather too equal care,
perhaps. He introduces figures well, not hesitating to draw
them on rather a large scale in his more important plates,
and grouping them very naturally.
I have never been a believer in the theory (rather com-
monly received amongst painters) that anybody who can paint
can also etch if he will only condescend to do so. Etching is a
most peculiar art in many respects, and even the simplest
forms of it arc not so simple as they look, for it is as difficult
to make a simple thing loole jfelJJHpPt 30^ effective as it is to
get at effect by grca^^A^^|HB. a great help, no doubt,
for an etcher ta^j^^^^^^^^^^^Dtefore he sets to work on
the coppcr.jfa|^^^r ^^^Plhderstands drawing and
light-n^l^^^^V ^^^^ntion of all graphic art ;
:eat painters sometimes
VARIOUS FRENCH ETCHERS, 223
etch a little too condescendingly, and take up the needle less
in the spirit of a student who has to learn a new and difficult
art, than in the spirit of a strong man, accustomed to heavy
weights, who by chance has to carry a light one. The most
extreme instance of this is the landscape-painter COROT. As
he is a very celebrated artist, somebody persuaded him to
etch, and the consequence was that he sketched on the copper
as if he had been making a pochade with the brush. Now, in
oil-painting, this kind of sketching is of use, because it gives
tone and colour, though at the sacrifice of form, but in etching
such work could never have much value unless all the tones
were of the most wonderfully delicate truth, which they are not
likely ever to be. Corot is not ignorant of form, but he aban-
doned the study of it many years ago in order to direct his
attention exclusively to a certain kind of effect In the three
etchings of his which are before me as I write, " Souvenir
(Tltaliel' '' Pay sage (Tltaliel' and ''Environs de Rome'' (all
published in the early days of the Societe des Aquafortistes),
the want of some kind of form is very painfully apparent It
is hard to see how etching can abandon drawing altogether,
especially when such definite forms as tree trunks are brought
quite into the foreground. Then Corot has no sense whatever
of the use of line (having thought and worked so much with
the brush), and the consequence is that he runs all his lines
together in a wild scribble for shading, the only apparent
object being to cover the copper as fast as possible with
something, however artless. It is scribble, scribble every-
where, without a plant in the foreground or a leaf upon a
branch, the ensemble presenting at a little distance very much
the appearance of the preparatory rubbing-in with which an
artist prepares his paper for a charcoal drawing, the only
difference being that whereas the quality of rubbed charcoal
is exquisite, that of etched shading like this is decidedly
unpleasant. And yet, in spite of these defects, the few etch-
ings of Corot have one merit and charm — they do certainly
224 VARIOUS FRENCH ETCHERS,
recall to mind, by association of ideas, his charming work in
oil, so full of the sweetest poetical sentiment All sins are
forgiven to the true poets. Corot may not be a great poet,
as Turner was, but he is a true one. He feels the mystery
of nature ; he feels the delightfulness of cool, grey mornings
and dewy evenings ; he feels the palpitating life of gleaming
river-shores and the trembling of the light branches wherein
the fitful breezes play. He has an intense sense of the glim-
mering indecision and mystery of natural appearances, and he
does not, as it seems to us, draw and paint with precision
simply because his attention does not fix itself on that which
is precise.*
It would be unjust to omit an etcher of such masculine
power as Bracquemond, but his works are not always
executed upon right principles, though his error has been
quite of an opposite character to the formlessness of Corot
The veteran landscape-painter thinks only of relation, and
not about individual form, but (in the plates at least which I
now refer to) M, Bracquemond gives individual form with the
utmost force and truth, without the slightest thought of rela-
tion. He contributed some plates to the Society which were
perfect examples of this system of work, and of the perfection
and imperfection that it leads to. One of them, Le Haut dun
Battant de Porte, represents part of a door in a farmyard, with
four victims nailed to it, a crow, two hawks, and a bat Each
* It is a remarkable proof of the value of a direct expression, however defective
in its manner, that Corot*s etchings, with all their faults, should convey a better
notion of the peculiarities of his genius than the far cleverer plates which Bracque-
mond executed after Corot's pictures. \Mien Bracquemond translates Corot, all
the pensive tenderness and lightness of touch are lost. Corot is a sensitive dreamer,
dwelling in a world of his own. Bracquemond has a strong, clever, tough nature,
admirably fitted for representing the field sports of strong men — as, for instance, in
his capital sporting print, "Unearthing a Badger" — the physical life of animals,
and such aspects of the external world as are to be apprehended by men in general
who lead active lives and are a good deal out of doors. It is quite impossible that
such a nature should have enough in common with that of Corot to be able to
render a single thought of his.
VARIOUS FRENCH ETCHERS. 225
of these is drawn with the utmost strength of imitation, but
each of them is independent of the rest, and might be detached
as a separate study. One feels this even more strongly in
Vanneauxet Sarcelles (lapwings and teal) ; each bird is studied
separately, the whole force of the artist's attention being con-
centrated upon it exclusively, without embracing the compo-
sition as a whole. A large flower comes against the nearest
lapwing ; every petal of it is strongly outlined, and then the
surface is flatly shaded without any modulation from incidence
of light The principle of this work is not at all a bad
principle for some kinds of decoration ; it is quite right on. a
dinner-service or a screen, and we are very familiar with it in
Japanese art ; but it is wrong in pictorial art, and consequently
in artistic etching, which ought to be synthetic above all
things. At a later date M. Bracquemond began to study
more synthetically, and one result of this change of purpose
was " The Hare," which appeared in the Portfolio for May
1872. In this plate the artist still gave evidence of his know-
ledge of animal life, for the attitude and expression of the
hare were as good as those of the birds in earlier works ; but
he now seriously attempted a general effect, and to some
extent succeeded in an experiment with line and stipple,
whilst the foreground plants, instead of being heavily outlined
as before, were now treated as if they had been lightly sketched
with a brush. The revolution in manner was therefore com-
plete, since in the purpose of the artist synthesis had been
substituted for analysis ; and if M. Bracquemond had pursued
etching regularly afterwards there can be little doubt that he
would have taken a decided rank amongst the best etchers of
the age. Unfortunately, however, for this particular branch
of art, he accepted an engagement at Sevres which has since
occupied all his time.
M. L£on Gaucherel is a well-known engraver who has
brought to etching the knowledge of form acquired in another
art He is also a very skilful painter in water-colour. His
Q
226 VARIOUS FRENCH ETCHERS.
labours have been chiefly architectural, archaeological, and
decorative. All M. Gaucherd's etchings are distinguished by
great clearness and knowledge, but they are generally rather
hard and severe in manner, being conceived more from an
architect's or an engraver's point of view than from a painter's.
One of his plates, representing a narrow canal in Venice,
between a garden and a lofty house, with a narrow footbridge
at a considerable height above the water, appeared in the
Portfolio for December 1873, and may be considered in all
respects a representative example, having all the clearness of
his work with its good drawing and perspective, and also the
peculiar hardness just alluded to, which extends even to the
foliage. M. Gaucherel has occasionally etched from pictures,
and I shall have to recur to this part of his labours in another
chapter. He was also one of the artists who etched Bida's
designs for Hachette's magnificent edition of the Gospels ; and
I may add (though this has nothing to do with etching) that
he engraved on steel nearly three hundred ornaments for that
wonderful book, and engraved them in a manner so faultless
that it excelled all previous work in the same kind.
M. Feyen-Perrin has often etched from his own pictures,
which for some time past have represented rather melancholy
subjects, found on the coast of Brittany, amongst the fishing
population. He has much true natural sympathy for the
pathos of a hard life, especially as it touches women ; so, whilst
too many of his brethren were painting the dani-monde of
Paris, Feyen-Perrin went to study a nobler though less
elegant kind of life on the sea-shore. He is not, however, a
marine painter in the ordinary sense of the word, but one of
the Great French rustic school akin to Millet and others, only
studying the peasantry on the coast, with the influence of the sea
upon their lives. I think the finest of Feyen-Perrin's etchings
is the one called Vanneuses de Cancak. Two women are
winnowing on the shore of a broad estuary. I have rarely
seen a plate which with such simple means of execution con-
VAUIO US FRENCH ETCHERS. 2 2 7
veyed ideas of texture and tone as well as form, and I shall
have more to say of this plate in relation to the art of etching
from pictures. The same qualities, though ' in a less striking
degree, are visible in "A Sailor's Infancy," which was published
in the Portfolio (May 1873). This plate is, however, a better
instance than the " Vanneuses " of the sort of pathos which
distinguishes the artist's work. A mother is seated on one of
the great blocks of a pier with her infant in her arms, and the
sea and sky for a background. She is awaiting the arrival of
a fishing-boat, visible in the distance ; meanwhile she looks
rather sadly on the baby in her arms, as if thinking already
of the time when he also must leave her in the fishing-boats.
In these plates, although they are done from pictures, we have
the perfect originality of the artist, since the pictures are his
own, and the needle does no more than interpret the execu-
tion which best expresses his own thoughts. When an etcher
works from pictures done by another hand the case is entirely
altered.
M. Legros, who is now very well known in England as
a painter, has etched what are specially and justly called
" painters* etchings ; " that is to say, the kind of work which a
painter may do by natural genius and by the help of the
artistic experience gained in working with the brush. I have
already mentioned Corot as another instance of this ; but there
is a difference between the two artists which is much in
favour of Legros, who, being a figure-painter, must be depend-
ent upon form, and can never entirely neglect it as Corot
does in his landscapes. M. Legros uses the etching-needle
without at all troubling himself about what may constitute
the good and judicious management of it or the contrary,
hence his etchings have an inexperienced and amateurish
look in direct contrast with the strong mental gifts which
express themselves in this simple way, and give a sterling
value to the work in spite of all executive deficiencies. The
texture of his shading, at least in some of his earlier plates, is
228 VAJRIO US FRENCH ETCHERS.
faulty in a peculiar way which I will try to describe. The
lines run together, and produce little black patches by chance,
where they were not, could not be, definitely intended by the
artist There appears to be no knowledge of the resources of
the art, except a difference in depths of biting ; the same thin
needle is used everywhere with little variety of texture. The
best piece of execution that M. Legros has hitherto produced
is Le Banliomme Misire, and this is conceived rather like an
old woodcut ; however, it is a thoroughly fine piece of work
in every way, and shaded and bitten in most perfect harmony
with the subject The mental qualities of this artist's work
are always nobly serious, and must seem strangely so to those
who believe in the universal levity of the French temperament
The legend of La Bonlwntvie Mistre is this: Saints Peter
and Paul visited one day a very poor old man, who possessed
a hut and a pear-tree, and offered to grant him any wish that
he might form, so he did not ask for wealth, but simply
requested that whosoever climbed up into his pear-tree might
not be able to get dovm again without his permission. In this
way he caught a thief or two, and at length came Death to pay
Le Bonhomme Mis^re a visit The old man received him
very pleasantly, and just begged him to be so good as to
climb the pear-tree to get a certain ripe fruit which hung on
one of the upper branches. Once there, Death could not get
down again without the old man's express permission, so a
treaty was concluded between them in consequence of which
Misery dwells for ever upon the earth. M. Legros has chosen
the moment when Death is up in the pear-tree holding out
the pear in his skeleton fingers, and old Misery is looking up
at him. The imaginative conception of the whole scene is
worthy of some great solemn-minded old northern master.
There is something awful too in the plate of the Bell-Ringer
in the gloomy steeple chamber, with two children looking up
at the bell, half in dread, whilst the ringer's grave face and
bent figure indicate rather the fixed habit of a serious mind
VARIO US FRENCH ETCHERS. 2 29
"subdued to what it works in," than any fear of the loud-
voiced thing that swings and rings above him. I like too
very much the open and sweet gravity of the monk's portrait
in a small square etching which just contains the head and
neck, and cowl thrown back ; it is the face of a man whose
thoughts rise far above the miserable details of the present,
and dwell in the contemplation of the eternal The large
plate of a girl, a priest, and an old man coming out of church
(the old man telling his beads), is full of the same sweetness
and noble gravity. The girl has the aspect of a Madonna,
and the men's faces are noble studies, both of them. Unfortu-
nately, from the want of technical skill, the three heads are so
exactly on the same plane that the girl appears gigantic M.
Legros has always taken a peculiar artistic interest in the
Roman Catholic worship. Many an artist has been struck
by the splendour of its ceremonies, by its golden and silk
embroideries, candles, ornaments, imagery, incense ; but these
things do not attract Legros ; he turns to the monk in his
rough garment, and to the poor peasant maidens and old
men in the humble village church, watches them as they pray,
and draws them with an instinct of sympathy which, in its
own peculiar kind, has no precedent in the fine arts.
Few etchers of the modern French school have produced
such uniformly good work as M. Brunet-Debaines. Two
little plates of his published by Cadart, La Place Royale d
Ddle and A Verdun siir le DotibSy are in their way simply
perfection, faultless little gems of true etching like the little
plates of Veyrassat, everything being well expressed that it
was necessary to express at all, and not a stroke too much.
Considering how little M. Brunet-Debaines has published in
the way of original etching, it is surprising that he should be
able to do such work as this, drawn evidently with the most
enviable facility, and beautifully right both in all the delight-
ful detail which is given of picturesque towers and houses,
and in the shading of important masses. In other subjects,
230 VARIO US FRENCH ETCHERS.
where buildings occur whose architectural importance exacts
a strict attention to perspective and to constructive detail,
this artist goes through his work without neglecting either
truth of construction on the one hand or pictorial effect on
the other ; and it would be difficult to find in the etchings of
architects or painters a manner of work better calculated to
explain, at the same time, how an edifice was built and how
it looked in sun and shadow. The tower in the Rtu des
Grands Dcgris d Blois and the side of Notre-Dame de Bourges^
with its window and doorway, and what is above the doorway,
are both good instances of this. M. Brunet-Debaines is also
one of the best living etchers from pictures, and I shall have
more to say of him in that capacity.
The subject of architecture brings me to the work of M.
DE RocHEBRUNE, who etchcs it with great precision and rich-
ness of detail, combined with powerful light and shade. Two
magnificent interiors of his* have been published by M.
Cadart in his annual portfolios (FEauforte en 1874 and
TEauforte en 1875). M. de Rochebrune is a painter of noble
birth who has the rare privilege of living in one of the grandest
of the old French chateaux, so that for these two subjects he
had only to look at tA\'0 sides of his o%vn studio, and draw the
chimney-piece and the door, gigantic constructions of se;pii-
barbaric magnificence fit for some royal hall of the Elizabethan
period. These etchings, which are large, are full of strong
work in their kind, and prove a resolute determination to draw
everything fairly and thoroughly, a determination which is
rarely found in unison with such a vigorous sense of effect
The same substantial qualities may be observed in other
works by M. de Rochebrune even when the subject is much
less striking. He has illustrated the chateau of Chambord, the
Louvre, the H6tcl Cluny, the ch&teaux of Blois, Pierrefonds,
Ecouen, and the cathedral of Strasbourg.
• ChemitUe de Vatdier de Terre-Neuz'e, Vendue, and Porte de VaUUer de Terrc-
Neuve,
VARIO US FRENCH ETCHERS. 23 1
The French school is so rich in etchers of ability, whose
number increases yearly, that it is impossible in a book like
this to avoid omissions which may already be considered un-
just, and which are likely to appear much more so a few years
hence, when artists now beginning their work shall have
developed themselves completely by practice. Amongst
those who ought not to be omitted, since they have taken part
in the movement for a good many years, M. Chauvel deserves
respectful mention for his clear drawing of landscape and
genuine manner, as exemplified in such plates as A Fleury
Mamey which is simply and well etched, and preferable to his
more laboured work, such as that in La Grenouille et le Bceuf.
A good specimen of his work, a scene with tree trunks in the
foreground and an effect of rain in the distance, under the
title Environs de Rouett, was published in FEauforte en
1874. ' There was no waste of labour in this plate, which con-
veyed the intended impression perfectly. In the first year of
the Societe des Aquafortistes M. Chaigneau contributed a
plate called Moutons en Plaine^ which I thought then, and
think still, one of the best examples of modern etching of a
simple kind, being at the same time right in manner, true to
nature, and poetical in feeling. The figure of the shepherdess
is almost sublime in her simple dignity, as she glances over her
sheep. The landscape, without being minute, is grand and
true, the play of light in the corn being very beautiful Like
Daubigny's Pare d Moutons, this is a genuine pastoral poem,
but here we have an additional satisfaction in the truth with
which every sheep is studied and drawn. Another plate by
the same artist, Femme Gardant des Moutons, is too coarse in
texture to be held in the hand, and does not look well or come
well together at a less distance than six or eight feet from the
spectator. This is a point which deserves the serious attention
of etchers. If their works are to be published in portfolios or
books, they cannot safely be etched on the same principle as
if they were to be hung on the wall of an exhibition. There
232 VARIO US FRENCH ETCHERS.
is evidently a limit to coarseness of texture in shading — a limit
beyond which the lines cease to be shading altogether and
become simply black bars with white spaces between them, or
a network like a wire fence. M. Abraham's etchings of land-
scape deserve mention for a masculine and direct manner, but
show little trace of any tenderness in feeling. The best are
Environs de Chdtcau Gonticr and Bords de POtidofi, the first
a scene in a forest amongst the boles of ancient trees, on rocky
broken ground, well composed, and quite giving the impression
of such a place ; the other a piece of lowland river-shore, with
tall thin graceful trees just well enough drawn to make one
regret that they were not treated with the tenderness of
Appian or Lalanne. It is not without pleasure that I mention
here the name of ViLLEVlEiLLE, a landscape-painter of much
feeling, who died, like our own Girtin, in early manhood. He
had an exquisite sense of landscape beauty, which, however, is
not nearly so apparent in his etchings as it is in his work in
oil, which had the additional charm of a warm sunny colour
not common either in the French school or in any other. A
carping critic might here observe that I am going beyond the
province of this book in speaking of an etcher's capacity as a
painter ; but it is not so, for in looking at an etching by Ville-
vieille I think, and think regretfully, how he would have
painted the same subject His etched work is so far inferior
as to convey hardly an)^ing of the painter's charm and
sweetness. The two plates under the same title, A Nohant-
Vicq — one representing an old thatched cottage, and the other
an approach to a bridge under trees — are both interesting
plates, but the latter is very violent in its lights and darks, the
foliage being quite white in the lights, and all cast shadows
as black as unmitigated printing-ink could make them. This,
however, may have been due simply to technical inexperience,
for in another plate by the same artist, En PicardiCy which was
given in the first edition of this work, Villevieille had recourse
to the roulette for his general tone, and escaped all false vio-
VAjRIO us FRENCH ETCHERS, 233
lence, attaining in place of it a harmony very like that of his
pictures. The last-named etching is very simple in subject,
but pervaded by a tender melancholy, which makes it linger
in the memory for long.
M. Balfourier is a very experienced landscape-painter,
who occasionally etches his own pictures. His system of work
is simply to begin by putting in all organic markings and
biting them rather deeply, after which he passes a veil of
shading over the work to be bitten much more lightly. In
some of his plates this division of processes is even too apparent,
so that the work does not seem harmonised, but in others the
technical method is quite successful ; and as the artist always
chooses curious and interesting subjects his best plates are
well worth preserving. I can heartily recommend two of
them, Marais prh cFElclic (Espagne) and Une Usine d la
Crau ( Var)y both admirable interpretations of the picturesque
of southern Europe. I observe that in M. Balfourier's work
the immediate foreground and the far distance are rarely of
much importance, but that nearly all his interesting material
is to be found on the nearer middle distance, or what the
French call le second plan. This is extremely judicious,
because at that distance landscape material is most con-
veniently situated for a kind of study combining breadth with
intelligible detail, and there is much less risk to the general
harmony than there would be ina minute study of what lies quite
close at hand. M. SOUMY, who was a Prix de Rome^ has, I
believe, done little in etching, but two of his plates, published
under the same title. Forges d'Allevar en Dauphiniy are very
charming, in a rather old-fashioned way, reminding one of Ever-
dingen, and quite as good as the best work of that master.
In these plates the artist treats broken ground and picturesque
buildings very happily, with much breadth of light and shade,
and considerable truth of tone. The Baron X)E Longue-
viLLE is a naval officer and an amateur, but a very skilful
amateur. No marine-painter whom I remember has better
234 VARIOUS FRENCH ETCHERS.
expressed the majesty of a modem war-fleet He is fond of
naval magnificence, and understands it both artistically and
as an observer of seamanship. The objection to his work is
the grave artistic error of losing his darks in absolute black, so
that his shadows are usually quite black. This is a complete
mistake, due to a i^-ant of study of the inevitable artistic com-
promises. In the plate entitled Sotis Voiles courant grand
Largue this fault is visible only in the shadows on the nearest
sails ; but some other plates — as, for instance, Au Mouillage
and En Mar — are altogether spoiled by it In the first
mentioned of these subjects the student cannot fail to remark
the admirable rendering of the effect of six different distances
on the appearance of a ship ; this is the artistic purpose of
the etching, and \i'ith right artistic cunning the nearest ship
is brought dose to the most remote one. The water is very
liquid and good, and the sense of being at sea perfectly
communicated. In the Sous Vapcur a steam fleet is going at
speed on calm water, clouds of black smoke issuing from
ever>* funnel ; I have ne\'er seen the sublimit}* of a steam
war-fleet more impressively rendered M. de Longueville
has perfect mastery of his materials, and can do all he wants
to do in etching, but he seems to have no aspiration beyond
the lively and truthful rendering of what he knows. M.
Ballin is more ambitious ; some of his plates of marine
subjects are interesting historically, and have besides a
picturesque interest of quite a peculiar kind, since they set
before us the high-pooped ships that sailed and fought two
hundred years ago. This kind of restoration is still quite
possible, for we have ample e\'idence as to the construction of
the ships* and the sea remains ever the same. M. Ballin
appears to feel \'er>' strongly the grandeur of the old naval
engagements, and draws them with great spirit Since the
war of 1S70 there have appeared two or three \'ery dcver
etdiers of military subjects^ such as Lan^n. Detaille, and De
NeuvillcL Lan^N draws animals capitally, a talent which
VARIOUS FRENCH ETCHERS. 235
stands him in good stead when he has to deal with such a
subject as Boulevard Montrouge, 1871, with the dead animals
lying about on the pavement, or the trooper's horse in Fau-
bourgs 30 Aout soir 1870, or the dead horses in Route de
Mouzon, 31 Aout 1870, which are represented with frightful
truth amongst the corpses of their riders. Detaille, a
favourite pupil of Meissonier, who has become celebrated as a
painter very early in life, etches with consummate ease and
skill, which may be attributed to his habit of making clever
croquis of what he sees for subsequent use in his pictures.
His two plates, Un Uhlan and Trompette de C/iasseurSf are as
good as anything well can be in that light-handed sketchy
manner, being full of the closest observation expressed with
admirable ease. Any critic can say that these are "mere
sketches," because all the'paper is not blackened ; but he who
knows what good drawing is, and where to look for it, will
find more of it in a horse's leg by Detaille, sketched from
memory in five minutes, than in many a laboured engraving.
M. DE Neuville is a painter of soldiers in action and repose,
and a clever sketcher on copper ; his Mobiles d la Tranchee^
^i'ege de Paris, is a good example of the strong character
which he puts into his work, every face and every attitude
being a separate and strikingly truthful study. With this
name I close a chapter already too long for the reader's
patience, and yet too short for any adequate study of those
etchers who have not been noticed separately. So much
energy and so much genuine talent are now to be found in
the French school of etching, that the members of it are
already too numerous to be spoken of with a fair allowance
of space and study to each. We can do no more than simply
acknowledge their honourable perseverance, and the very
considerable degree of artistic success which has already
attended it
ETCHING AND ETCHERS.
BOOK IV.
THE ENGLISH SCHOOL.
CHAPTER I.
THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND,
TN a work intended for English readers, it is an excusable
degree of patriotism to give rather more space to the
English school than would be strictly due to it according to
the rules of absolute impartiality. The names of English
artists are already known to the reader, and he will expect,
it may be supposed, an account of what they have done in
etching.- But let me warn him at the beginning that he is
not to expect any great enthusiasm or activity in the English
school There is no sustained energetic work in this art in
England ; it is not encouraged here, as it is in France, by
great publishing enterprises succeeding each other rapidly ;
nor, on the other hand, is there much of that heroic temper
amongst English artists which will persevere in an unremu-
nerative pursuit, simply for the love of it, and from a feeling
that a noble art ought to be kept alive for its own sake.
In considering the difference between France and Eng-
land in this respect, we find that the reasons for it are easily
discoverable. The ordinary Englishman measures the graphic
arts exclusively by their powers of imitation ; he has no
conception of any higher faculty in the artist, or any wider
liberty. If you want the key to all his thinking about graphic
art, here it is. When there is much imitation of a clever
kind, he rather likes the art and thinks it is good ; when there
is little imitation, the art puzzles him and he passes it by.
Nor is this view of the subject entirely confined to those who
are wholly uneducated in art It is so much a part of the
240 THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND.
i
national temperament that some of the ablest artists and
some of the best-informed critics are never wholly delivered
from it, but are always liable to fall back into it, and to for-
get all larger and nobler ideas, either in the pleasure of
simply imitating nature, or else in the }cindred delight of
enjoying such imitation when it has been cleverly and suc-
cessfully accomplished Even Mr. Ruskin tells the students
at Oxford that the painting which is likest nature is best, and
quotes with approbation Leonardo da Vinci's assertion,
excusable only in an age when criticism was childish though
art was strong and great, that the mirror is the master of
painters, and that the proper way to test the merits of a
picture is to compare it with the reflection of the living model
in a looking-glass ! This is a thing which in modem times
could be said only by an English critic, and only to an
English audience. The conception of art as something dis-
tinct from simple imitation is too generally admitted on the
Continent for such a doctrine to be listened to or tolerated
there, and the critic who acknowledged it as his own would
be answered at once by innumerable voices, " We know better
than that ; we know that the true power of art is exhibited
in forms which are not imitation, and are not compatible with
imitation ; that the work of the artist, as distinguished from
that of the simple copyist of matter, is full of deviations from
the truth as it would be seen in a mirror, these deviations
being not faults to be corrected, but essential parts of the
artistic expression, without which the work would be mind-
less. We know that the real labour of the artist (though the
vulgar may not be aware of it) consists, not in giving a
mirror-like image of things precisely as they are, but in a
personal and original interpretation of their aspects, far,
indeed, from the literal truth of a reflection on metal or on
glass."
It may seem that this question has more to do with paint-
ing than with etching, but the truth is that the state of
THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND. 241
general opinion with regard to imitation affects all the fine
arts which concern themselves with the representation of
natural objects. If you think that drawing is to be an imita-
tion of nature and not an interpretation, there is hardly any
piece of thoroughly great work in etching which will not
be offensive to you, but if, on the other hand, you have ac-
cepted frankly the higher and greater conception of the fine
arts, which leaves the pictorial artist as free to express himself
as the musical or poetical artist, then the very peculiarities
which would have irritated you before for their obvious lack
of imitative truth, may possibly afford you a noble pleasure
on other grounds, either as expressions of human energy or
tenderness, or else because they may suggest to you some
glorious or beautiful sight in nature to which they bear
hardly any imitative resemblance.
The acceptance or refusal of etching in England, and the
possibility of forming a great school of etchers in this country,
depend more upon the public feeling about imitation than
upon any other peculiarity of taste. So long as the idea
prevails that the best art is that which is most like the reflection
of nature in a looking-glass, so long will the work of the great
etchers appear wilfully false and wrong, and there will be little
public encouragement to follow in their footsteps, and to
labour for the acquisition of any skill which would ultimately
resemble theirs.
How deeply rooted this idea is may be seen in the current
criticism of the newspapers, which too often proceeds on the
tacit assumption that art has nothing to do but copy some
natural model, and that the best art is that which imitates it
most closely. " All art," said the Morning Post when review-
ing the first edition of this work, " is essentially mechanical ;
the needle, the burin, the pencil, the brush, — these are all
machines or tools worked by the hand to copy what the eye
beholds, and the faithfulness of the copy constitutes the
merit of the work. No graphic delineation can portray the
R
242 THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND.
invisible, no artist can figure feeling ; this must be extracted
by spectators themselves out of the imitated forms, as his was
excited by the view of the originals."
Here you have a perfectly clear and intelligible expres-
sion of the prevalent English theory about art Here it is
clearly stated that the work of the artist is mechanical, that
his only business is to copy what his eye beholds, and that
the faithfulness of the copy constitutes the merit of the work.
It is the mirror-theory taught officially to the Oxford under-
graduates. It has the advantage of an extreme simplicity,
and it has also the advantage of being the first theory of art
which suggests itself to every totally uneducated mind, so
that it is always sure of an immediate reception. The "leading
journal," the Times^ is awakening to the possibility of an
artistic expression not strictly imitative, but the first dawning
perception of the strangely new truth (familiar to every
French critic since his boyhood) half bewilders the writer
and half amuses him, so that he is not quite sure whether he
ought to laugh at interpretative work or to treat it rather
respectfully. Here is an extract from the greatest newspaper
In England :—
" The Hare — A Misty Mornings by P. Braquemond. On
first looking at the etching it produces upon the mind the
impression of a bad dream. A hare with one huge solid ear,
the fore part of its body in bright light, the hind part scarcely
visible, squats in the foreground. In the middle distance are
three strange shadows of other hares running at speed in
different directions, and, farther off, three pigmy shadows of
men. The resemblance to nature is remote, and yet this is a
very good etching. The truth is, that the work of the etcher
can, in many of its branches, be appreciated only by an
educated eye. The etcher does not reproduce nature; he
translates it into a language of his own, a language abounding
in subtle interpretations conveyed with extraordinary delicacy
and harmony, but a language which very often appears but
THE RE VIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND. 243
gibberish until we have mastered it Then again the etcher is
ambitious. He plumes himself on attempting things which
might be deemed far beyond the. scope of the black line, which
is all he can work with. When he makes these attempts, as
in the etching before us, he appears to fail ridiculously, until
we come to understand his method, when we are lost in
astonishment at the dexterity of his needle. His lights and
shadows, falser to nature even than those of photography, are
blacker and brighter than anything in earth and heaven ; we
may often take our choice whether his lines and scratches are
intended for water or dry land, for clouds or mountains ; but
if we surrender ourselves to a competent teacher, we shall soon
find it pleasant to be schooled in this strange tongue, and
learn what an artistic treat is locked up even in this one-eared
hare, with the bright breast and inky body, and in the queer
abnormal shadows which mean ' a misty morning ! * "
Now, the writer of the above criticism is certainly in a very
different position, intellectually, from that of the contributor
to the Morning Post, whose doctrine I quoted previously. He
sees that in one art, at least, namely, in etching, there is such
a thing as interpretation, but he cannot help feeling that it is
too novel an idea to be taken quite seriously at first, so he
writes of it as of some strange new thing, though Rembrandt
died more than two hundred years ago. He does not seem
to be aware that if etching is interpretative, all artistic drawing
is so too, nay, that even painting is so, especially in the
greatest works. What surprises me in such criticism as this
is its perfectly uncultured tone. Ideas about art, which have
long been the common property of all cultivated Europeans,
are utterly unfamiliar to the critic's mind. He writes upon the
subject as you would expect some remote Australian colonist to
write about it for some petty colonial newspaper, intended to
the occupants of the nearest sheep-runs. And yet he is
in the capital of one of the greatest and richest nations
pe, for its most influential newspaper, and about an
244 THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND.
art which came to perfection two hundred years before he was
bom ! A word more, and we will leave this kind of criticism
to those for whom it is intended. The writer in the Times
cannot even read common drawing. He laughs at Bracque-
mond for having drawn a hare with one ear, whereas, in
Bracquemond's plate, the hare has two ears, erect and back to
back, he also sneers at the artist for not having shown the
hind quarters of the hare more clearly, as if more of them
could have been seen in that position, and he is puzzled by
the local colour of the white fur and the brown, which seems
to him an unaccountable sort of light and shade. And it is to
a critic of this degree of culture and capacity that the Times
entrusts the reputation of great artists — and its own ! *
It would be unjust to leave the impression that we have
no more advanced art-criticism than the specimens which I
have just quoted, but they are fair examples of what may still
be presented in the centres of English enlightenment, without
calling forth either protest or contradiction. What is wanting
in England is a general understanding of the true nature of
artistic expression, which would enable the national mind to
judge of these things for itself. It is not a matter of opinion,
but of demonstrable fact, that great art is an entirely different
thing from the reflection of material objects in a mirror, and
this is quite clearly understood in other countries by cultivated
people, whether professedly art critics or not; why, then,
cannot it be understood in ours ? Take the finest living
models you can find, dress them or undress them as you will,
take the biggest and best of mirrors, and then try to arrange
your models and your light till the reflected image looks
like a picture by Raphael, or Titian, or our own Sir Joshua
* It may be observed that this contributor to the Times had to spell the names
of two living artists in the course of his notice, and that he managed to spell them
both wrong, though they were printed in capital letters in the volume of etchings
which he was reviewing. What degree of accuracy in observation is to be expected
from such a writer?
THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND. 245
Reynolds ! Do what you will, the reflected image will never
resemble masters' work, but will seem only what it is, a reflec-
tion of simple nature. There never was a tableau vivant that
really looked like a picture, the tableau vivant^ when cleverly
arranged, looks like a grouping of artists' models, but no more.
So it is with landscape. Take your looking-glass out into the
finest natural scenery you can find, it will never show you
noble pictures of landscape, but only things like photographs
with the addition of colour, and a far more brilliant light
Our fathers had a fearful and wonderful invention which they
called a "Claude glass," a black mirror, which blackened
nature for them, till they fancied that it looked like the old
pictures in their galleries. They did, indeed, by this ingenious
contrivance, mix the dirt of old pictures with the pure hues of
nature, and so brought nature to the dinginess of the art which
they admired, but not a branch of a tree, not an outline of a
hill, accommodated itself in the mirror to the exigencies of
artistic composition. All of Claude that the " Claude glass "
gave, was the dust of two centuries in the darkened varnish ; it
imitated neither the beauty of his arrangements nor the ten-
derness of his feeling.
Now, when you go into the heart of the matter, and by a
thorough analysis of good artistic work endeavour to find out
in what it differs from the reflection of natural objects in a
mirror, you will soon discover, if your eye is sufficiently
educated to discern differences of form, that the artist has
been incessantly altering the appearances of things and forcing
them into conformity with some conception in his own mind.
It is by these alterations, and by these alone, that he can
express his personal tastes and feelings. If all artists re-
flected nature as the mirror does, you would not, in a gallery,
be able to recognise the work of different painters without the
help of their signatures. All personal style in art is an altera-
tion of nature. Every preference, every affection, destroys
that impartiality of the mind which would be necessary to the
346 THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND.
reflection of pure truth. Even what is popularly praised in
art as truth is never exactly true, but is an exaggeration of
some particular kind of truth, exhibited at the expense of
others.
If people knew this, and knew how false in many ways is
the art which seems to them most true, they would enter
more easily into that kind of mutual understanding or tacit
convention which is assumed by every powerful etcher to
exist between himself and the public It is a convention in
some respects resembling that between the reader and the
author of a book, by which the latter avails himself of letters
and words for the conveyance of his ideas ; in some respects,
I say, or to some extent, but etching is never quite so purely
conventional as the signs of writing are. For example, the
word "sunset" immediately suggests to the mind of an
English reader the setting of the sun, but the word is absolutely
conventional ; the choice of the letters which compose it, and
of the shapes of the letters, has not been determined in the
least by reference to any natural fact of form or colour ; and
many other words in other languages convey precisely the
same idea. Now let us see how a sunset would be represented
in painting first, and then in etching. Suppose it is a red sun-
set, and suppose that the best landscape-painter in the world
has painted it. He has represented it, let us say, by a disc
of vermilion or red lead, but however skilfully he may have
laid on the colour, there will still be so much conventionalism
in the representation that it will not be recognisable by any
one entirely outside of art and its conventions. Show it to
an agricultural labourer, who often sees natural sunsets, the
chances are that he will take it for a cherry. Now an etched
sunset, equally well done, will have been done on the assump-
tion of even more conventions than the painted one, and not
only the agricultural labourer, but people of far higher educa-
tion than his may not be able or willing to enter into these
conventions, especially if they are looking for what they think
THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND. 247
is imitative accuracy. The etcher will probably make his sun
with a black outline for the round disc, and then put other
black marks radiating from it, so that the spectator will say,
" it is not like a sunset, it is much more like the nave and
spokes of a cart-wheel." What are we to reply to such a piece
of criticism as this ? We can only answer that it is an under-
stood thing amongst people conversant with the language of
etching, that such signs are to represent the orb and its
radiance together. And now we come to the very hottest of
the everlasting battle between the criticism of knowledge and
the criticism of ignorance. The ignorant critic says, "ah, yes,
I see that the merits you affect to discover in these marks,
when they are made by the men whom you call great in etch-
ing, are purely fictitious merits. This thing that resembles a
cart-wheel is conventionally understood to stand for a sunset,
and it is the fashion amongst connoisseurs to call it very
clever, but it does not resemble nature. In nature the sun
has not a black outline, and there are no black lines radiating
from him on the sky."
This is the sort of objection to interpretative etching which
we meet with very frequently in England, because the concep-
tion of art simply as a means of imitation is so very prevalent
amongst our countrymen. The answer to it is not difficult to
find, but it is difficult to make it clear to those for whom it
ought to be made clearest. The fact is that, although the
black marks are not like nature, the manner in which they
are drawn upon the copper will most distinctly convey to
every competent critic the evidence of the artist's knowledge,
or betray his ignorance. There are no lines in nature, and
yet lines are a most efficient means of recalling nature to the
mind, and of expressing the concentrated experience of great
artists. If you will not grant any postulate to art, if you will
have absolute imitative accuracy, the painted sunset will be
inadmissible also, for although the oil-paint may render the
sun's colour, it cannot give his light, nor anything like his
248 THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND.
light, and the peasant might have reason on his side, all things
considered, if he concluded that the painted sun was more like
a cherry than the dazzling orb of day.
Painting comes to us with the postulate: "Let it be
granted that a lower light shall be understood to represent a
higher light," and in all great interpretative painting there are
so many other postulates besides, that it is always difficult to
read until we are used to it Etching comes with the chief
postulate : " Let it be g^nted that the line, though in itself
not true to nature, may be admitted as a means of expression."
There are also many minor postulates, but especially this one :
"Let it be g^nted that all* truths are not to be g^ven, but
only a selection from them."
The granting of such postulates as these establishes between
the artist and the spectator a certain agreement which may
be called a convention, and in this sense both painting and
etching are very conventional arts. But I wish to mark a
clear distinction between this kind of necessary mutual under-
standing and what a sound criticism would denounce as a blame-
worthy conventionalism. Let me give two instances to make
my meaning plain. There is a right convention between
educated spectators'and educated artists, by which it is agreed
that the dull and low light of oil-paint shall be understood to
mean the splendour of the sun. This convention is a right
one, because it is in obedience to the nature of things, for
without it a sunset could not be represented in painting. Now
let me give an instance of bad and foolish conventionalism.
There was a conventional understanding amongst amateurs
some time ago that the green of landscape was not to be
painted. There was nothing whatever in the art which
opposed itself in this instance to the free rendering of nature.
Oil-paint, and water-colour also, could render green with great
truth and power. The obstacle to the employment of this
colour came from a purely arbitrary conspiracy amongst con-
noisseurs and amateurs, by which they had determined that
THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND. 249
when fresh greens were introduced into a picture the work
should be understood to be a bad work of art. Foolish con-
ventionalisms of this kind appear as if they were devised for
the express purpose of restraining the development of the fine
arts, and although they originate with persons who profess to
take an interest in the advancement of art, their influence is
wholly noxious, and original men have to spend their force in
contending against them, as Constable contended against the
absurd prejudice which I have just mentioned as an example.
Now, in comparing the English with the French mind in
relation to fine art, I should say that English people generally
are much less liable to this latter kind of prejudiced conven-
tionalism than the French are, and that so far they have a
very great superiority over the French, but that, on the other
hand, they are just as far inferior to the French in the capacity
for entering into right conventionalisms and for granting
necessary postulates. The English public has for the last
twenty years been singularly free from all conventional preju-
dices about the fine arts, and there is no country in the world
where new practices in painting have so good a chance of
being fairly estimated on their merits as they have in England.
But the English seem to have a peculiar difficulty in entering
into those tacit understandings which the fine arts must always
presuppose. Let me give an instance of what I mean. In
Mrs. Oliphant's admirable novel A Son of the Soily she gives a
fine description of a rainbow, and then permits her readers to
see what a young English gentleman thinks about it "Young
Frankland at the window could not help thinking within him-
self what a beautiful picture it would make * if any of those
painter-fellows could do a rainbow.* " * Let us try to get to
the bottom of young Frankland's ideas on the subject He
thinks a rainbow cannot be " done '* in painting, because his
• Observe the note of contempt with reference to artists — "those painter-
fellows." This is quite usual in English fiction. The reader will find an essay on
the subject, entitled " Artists in Fiction,'* in my Thoughts about Art.
2SO THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND.
eye does not receive the same sensations from a painted rain-
bow that it does from a real one, or, in other words, the
"painter-fellows" cannot imitate the rainbow absolutely. Here
is just one of those very numerous occasions on which the
artist presupposes a tacit understanding between art and
criticism, or what I have called a necessary convention. Paint-
ing cannot give the splendour of the rainbow, so we have the
postulate : " Let it be g^ranted that the painted rainbow is not
to be so splendid as the natural one." Frankland does not
understand this; he does not see that the "painter-fellows"
ought not to incur contempt because they have not done that
which they never pretended to do. He does not enter into
the convention which is necessary both to the practice of art
and to its. enjoyment He is intensely English in this ; it is
an intensely English idea that the purpose of art is imitation,
and that where imitation is not achieved, art is a failure. Now
let us go a step farther. For a painted rainbow let us substi-
tute an engraved one. What would young Frankland say to
that? He would say that the engraver was an idiot to
attempt it How can you imitate a rainbow with black lines ?
The answer to all such criticism as this is that the artist pre-
supposes a certain understanding between himself and the
spectator. In the picture the convention was that art should
not be expected to imitate natural light, in the engraving that
neither light nor colour should be imitated. But a finished
engraving might still imitate the g^dation and semi-trans- ,
parency of a rainbow, and, in fact, these qualities have been
often rendered in engraving. Yet even these are not indi-
spensable to a work of art A rainbow may be " done " with
a few strokes of the etching-needle, or with common pen and
ink, and be quite noble and valuable work. Hardly any
imitation is possible with these limited means, yet they are
right in art, and imply no weakness or folly on the part of the
great artists who have so often used them. By the help of a
convention into which the spectator is invited or supposed to
THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND. 251
enter, such artists appeal not simply to his eyes, but to his
memory of nature and his imagination. When the spectator
is ignorant of the convention, he may sometimes fancy that
the artist insults his common sense, and certainly it is not to
common sense that noble art-work ever did or will appeal. It
appeals to far higher faculties, to our memories of the beauty
that has been, and our dreams of the beauty that has never
been, to our perception of the most subtle truth in nature, and
our delight in seeing such truth commented upon, and even
modified, by the free and masterful action of human genius.
It is because the English have hitherto understood art
much more as a copy than as a suggestion or an expres-
sion, much more as a substitute for imagination than as a
stimulus to it, that they have been moved with great difficulty
by all the forms of art which appeared to them " unfinished."
For the same reason the minor artists have in England been
exposed to an especially lamentable waste of labour, the too
well-known "malady of detail."*
Yet a true principle of good work in drawing was stated
in England quite plainly a hundred years ago by Sir Joshua
Reynolds. In his fortieth note on Du Fresnoy's poem on the
art of painting, when he dwells upon the necessity for breadth,
he gives an instance to show what breadth is.
"To illustrate this, we may have recourse to Titian's
bunch of grapes, which we will suppose placed so as to re-
ceive a broad light and shadow. Here, though each indi-
vidual grape on the light side has its light, and shadow, and
reflection, yet altogether they make but one broad mass of
light : the slightest sketchy therefore, wftere this breadth is pre-
* This is an expression of Charlet*s, and a just one. The attention to detail at
the expense of the large relations between masses, is due to an overwrought state
of the attention which does not indicate perfect mental balance. A good instance
of it in poetry is in Tennyson's Maud (xxiil), where the morbid hero is so taken
up with a tiny shell on the Breton shore, that it occupies an inordinate space in the
poem (twenty-nine verses), though it is an accidental bit of detail. This is quite
characteristic of the morbid mind.
252 THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND.
served^ will have a better effect^ will have more the appearance
of coming from a master-Jiand^ that is, in other words, will
have more the characteristic and generale of nature than the
most laborious finishing wJure this breadth is lost or neglectedT
A century later Mr. Seymour Haden wrote an article in
^<t Fine Arts Quarterly Review^ which inculcated the same
principle.
" What, then, is the amount and kind of previous know-
ledge and skill required by the etcher.^ It is an innate
artistic spirit, without which all the study in the world is
useless. It is the cultivation of this spirit, not arduously but
lovingly. It is the knowledge that is acquired by a life of
devotion to what is true and beautiful — by the daily and
hourly habit of weighing and comparing what we see in
nature, and thinking of how it should be represented in art
It is the habit of constant observation of great things and
small, and the experience that springs from it It is taste
which, a celebrated painter once said, but not truly, is rarer
than genius. The skill that grows out of these habits is the
skill required by the etcher. It is the skill of the analyst and
the synthetist, tlu skill to combine^ and the skill to separate — to
compound and to simplify — to detach plane from platie — to fuse
detail into mass — to subordinate definition to space, distance^
light, and air. Finally, it is the acumen to perceive the near
relationship that expression bears to form, and the skill to
draw them — not separately — but together."
There have never been wanting, since art was practised in
England, countrymen of ours who understood these things,
and, therefore, who understood etching, but they have been
too few in number to encourage sufficiently an art which
depends upon a multiplicity of buyers. It is necessary here
to enter briefly upon a question foreign to artistic considera-
tions, the purely commercial question. The fine arts depend
upon a sufficient sale of their products. This brings us to
one of the most surprising peculiarities in the commerce of
THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND. 253
the fine arts, one of those peculiarities which no human being
would ever guess by his own wisdom, but which the experi-
ence of business teaches us. To a person not practically
versed in such matters, it would seem that the power of
multiplying a work of art would be a source of wealth to the
artist It certainly would be so in any manufacture which
had simple utility for its purpose, and was not in any way
dependent upon opinion. No one could create a fortune by
making steel pens, if steel pens were not multipliable by the
million. Nobody could become rich by drawing designs on
calico, but calico-printers become immensely wealthy by
multiplying such designs. In the region of fine art, on the
contrary, the productions which are multipliable bring in
less to the producer than those which are not multipliable,
and it is positively a misfortune for an art that its products
should have facilities for being multiplied. Painting is luc-
rative, because every picture is unique. If pictures could be
printed in perfect colour, no single copy would be worth
more than a small fraction of what the original is now, and
it is likely that after deducting the expenses of printing,
with the profits of the publishing and the retail trade, the
net proceeds for the author of the work would be much less
than they are at present. There is, indeed, another side to
the question which we may not altogether overlook. When
the sale of a work of art is very great, then indeed the aggre-
gation of small profits on many copies is a compensation for
the loss of uniqueness in one of them. A very popular
novelist is a producer of works of art who finds it greatly to
his advantage to be able to multiply his products. But now
consider the position of the etcher. His work is not unique,
on the one hand, like that of the painter, and on the other
hand, although it could be multiplied as novels are, if there
were a demand for it, this is not practically an advantage
owing to the absence of such a demand. The etcher has,
therefore, to a certain extent the disadvantages of artists in
254 THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND.
colour and artists in language, without enjoying enough of
the advantages of either to be a compensation. His works
are multiplied, and therefore they are not unique, but they
are not multiplied enough.
The commercial experience of artists who can etch and
paint equally well is, that they cannot afford to etch. This is
the real reason why so little has been accomplished by the
English school Collectors will g^ve a thousand pounds, or
three thousand, for a picture, but they will give a high price
for an etching only when other people cannot get it, and in
the case of a new plate it is known that anybody can get it
** Men do not purchase pictures," Archdeacon Fisher wrote to
Constable, "because they admire them, but because others
covet them." The truth is, that the motives for purchasing
are mixed, but that one of them is to have the satisfaction of
being envied. This accounts for the extraordinary value of
unique things.
Etching has been practically sustained in England by the
occasional labours of painters who have worked simply from an
interest in the art A few of them have reached considerable
technical skill, even in this desultory way, and with this very
slight degree of external encouragement, one or two have
produced etchings which will bear comparison with the finest
work of other countries and times. Many amateurs have
attempted etching in England, and a very few have succeeded
Etching clubs existed in England long before the founda-
tion of the French Societe des Aquafortistes. The elder club
was composed from the first of many well-known painters,
who met together in a friendly way, and illustrated some
favourite poet, or combined to publish their own independent
inventions. Their first publication was the Deserted Village
of Goldsmith, accompanied by eighty etchings of small size,
and finished carefully. Many of them are very pretty, and
they have a predominating character, evidently derived from
the delicate little engravers' vigfnettes which were common
THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND. 255
in the days of the annuals. There is no strong or immortal
work in the volume, but it is often interesting and even
charming, with a graceful drawing-room sentiment It is
curious how this sentiment pervades the work of all the
contributors ; they never attempt anything beyond it, but rarely
fall short of it In 1844 the club published a series of plates,
called Etched Thoughts, which included one or two charming
etchings by Creswick, but in this work the members of the
club no longer had in view the minute prettiness of their first
publication, and had not as yet replaced that prettiness by
any more serious quality. In 1847 the club illustrated Gray's
Elegy, and in 1849 Milton's P Allegro, these two series of
etchings being, in point of composition and artistic sentiment,
very like an average academy exhibition. In 1852 the club
illustrated the Songs of Shakespeare, and this was the most
beautiful of their publications. In it they fully developed
their manner of work, the results of former practice being
concentrated in each plate. The next four years pass without
any publication, but the year 1857 is marked by the issue of
thirty plates, entitled Etchings for the Art Union of London,
some of which are valuable. The next Interval is longer still,
for it is not until eight years afterwards that the club issues
its following publication, entitled A Selection of Etchings by
the Etching Club, published by Cundall, 1865. This selection
consisted of twelve plates on a larger scale than was at that
time usual in England. On the whole, this is the strongest
work the club has issued. The Haden and Hook are both
exceedingly fine ; the " Summer Woods," by Redgrave, is a
charming piece of sylvan scenery ; the " Duenna's Return " is
Horsle/s best etching ; the " Herdsman," by Samuel Palmer,
is one of his three noblest works, and the " Creswick " is at
least as good as Creswick's average, which was never a low
average.
The misfortune of the English Club has been that, in
endeavouring to please an uneducated public, it has too often
2S6 THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND.
aimed at making etching /r^//^. The art is versatile enough
for anything, and if you aim at prettiness you may attain it,
but every art has its own especial tendencies, and it does not
seem that the tendencies of etching lie in that direction.
A strong direct expression of consummate knowledge and
passionate feeling are what the art is best suited for, and
most of its grandest works are not only not pretty, but their
qualities are vigorously the opposite of prettiness. Whilst
fully recognising the different merits of English work, its
sincerity in the study of nature, its general absence of false
pretension, its good intellectual or literary qualities which
enable it to interpret the masterpieces of literature, often with
great liveliness and a true sympathy with the writers, I have
always regretted that on the technical and purely artistic side
it should have done so little towards educating a public
which needed educating so much. There has been a technical
mistake, too, in very much English etching, that of struggling
painfully after tone. The failures to which this led are so
obvious that they made me speak of some English etching, in
the first edition of this work, with a degree of severity which I
have since regretted, not that I wrote anything which was
untrue, but what I did write might have been expressed more
kindly. Yet I was not alone in the dislike to that kind of
shading which is at the same time elaborate and false in
its tonic relations. Mr. Ruskin wrote against it later, briefly
and decisively, going much farther than I had done, and
asserting that complete light and shade was never possible in
the art at all, whilst all good etchings were done with few lines,
a decision which at once condemns the entire work of the
English Club* and the greater partof foreigfn work along with it
The plain truth is, that the more we learn of light and shade
the less we feel able to endure that which is patiently and
elaborately wrong ; and it is not much to be wondered at if a
critic is led to write severe things when he sees artists of
* Except here and there some outline sketch by a sculptor.
THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND. 257
reputation taking great pains to shade properly, then trusting
their work to an acid bath which upsets the relations of all its
tones, and finally publishing the spoiled plate. This is the
reason why critics who love light and shade most are likely to
be the least tolerant of it after disasters in the acid, and it is
these very critics who are likely to insist most on the capacities
of the line in etching, because the line is so much less depend-
ent for its effect upon a precise accuracy in biting.
One of the most important events in the history of English
etching was the appearance of Mr. Haden's plates in 1866.
Full justice is done to the merits of these works in the present
volume, so that the reader will not suspect me of undervaluing
them, if I express my lasting astonishment at their immediate
and decisive success. The public was apparently very little
prepared to appreciate work of that uncondescending kind,
and the press had never shown much knowledge of the
subject, yet the native force of Mr. Haden's manner overcame
the general apathy, and great numbers of people who had
never heard of etching before, or who thought it meant draw-
ing with the pen, were made aware of the existence of the
art by the articles on Mr. Haden's publication. It seldom
happens that the fashion selects the best man, but in this
instance it really did so in one especial sense. Several
members of the Etching Club were more experienced artists
than Mr. Haden, but not one of them was so purely and
essentially the etcher. It was even an advantage to him to
be an amateur, for not having the habits of either a painter
or an engraver, he formed for himself a set of habits adapted
to his own peculiar branch of art, and entered into the spirit
of it without reference to any other. The quotation already
g^ven from an article of his in a review has shown what that
spirit is. Not only was Mr. Haden's first publication entirely
successful, but when, some years later, he published an etching
of the Agamemnon^ the public took copies of it (at three
guineas each) in such quantities that, as nearly as I can
S
258 THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND.
calculate, the time spent upon the plate must have been paid
for at the rate of a guinea a minute*
As we are enumerating the different causes which have
aided the revival of etching in this country^ it would be an
omission to pass entirely without notice the reception of the
present volume, which certainly proved an awakened interest
in the art Although, in its first form, an expensive book
and a book on an unpopular subject, it rapidly made its way
and found a thousand buyers, nor has the demand for it
ceased with the cessation of the supply. We may therefore
fairly conclude that it may have had some influence upon
opinion, at least in drawing attention to the subject, and in
provoking the discussion of problems which we can never
thoroughly understand without enlarging our views of all the
graphic arts.
Soon after the first publication of this book, it occurred to
me that as there was no periodical in England which would
publish an etching,t it might be a good thing if a new one were
founded which would make etching an important part of its
system of illustration. I was much interested, at the same time,
in the new photographic processes which had been invented for
the reproduction of pictures and designs, and it seemed to me
that much might be done with these also. I mentioned this
idea to a friend who is a member of a well-known firm of
publishers, and he at once approved of it, so that we deter-
mined to start the Portfolio^ an art-monthly, the first number
of which appeared on the ist of January 1870. It is beyond
the province of these pages to say anything of the literary side
of this undertaking, which had its own purposes and its own
* This seems to contradict what has been already said in the present chapter
about the public indifference to etching, but the case of the Agamemnon is a very
singular exception to the general rule. The reader will understand that I cannot
mention instances of failure, which have been much more frequent
+ I mean as a work of art. A few etchings may have been published in one or
two of the older magazines, but simply as comic illustrations, or likenesses of cele-
brated men, not for artistic interest or quality.
THE REVIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND. 259
difficulties. With regard to the illustrations, my plan was to
encourage etching chiefly, but, at the same time, to keep
well on the look-out for improvements in other processes,
and to adopt them as soon as ever they proved to be practi-
cally valuable. Although intended only for a cultivated class
of readers, the Portfolio succeeded in establishing itself, and
has gradually strengthened its position. It deserves mention
in this volume for the same reason which induced me to
mention V Artiste and the Gazette des Beaux Arts. It has
already published a very considerable quantity of etchings,
many of them by the best artists in Europe, and it is con-
stantly adding to their number. In one respect, however, the
result has been rather disappointing to me. I had hoped
that a periodical of this kind would be useful as an encourage-
ment to the practice of the art in England, but our most
active artistic contributors have hitherto been foreigners.
Even the series of etchings from pictures in the National
Gallery, which is the most important enterprise hitherto
undertaken by the Portfolio^ an enterprise indeed of truly
national importance, has been hitherto dependent for its
realisation upon the talents of the best continental etchers,
who were induced to come to England expressly for the
undertaking.* Until the foundation of the Portfolio no
English publisher would give a commission for an etching,
except for comic illustrations to novels, which were ordered
for their comic, and not their artistic qualities, and etching
was employed for these because it could be done rapidly, and
because the caricaturists found that the facility of the point
was a convenience to them for giving expression to their
Harry Lorrequers and Charles O'Malleys. The true art was
* This has not been due to any prejudice in favour of foreign work on the
part of the editor, but simply to the fact that there are so few men in England able
to etch well enough, and that these few are always busy painting. It would be
impossible for the Portfolio to keep up to any high standard of production without
powerful help from abroad. There is a good deal of amateur activity in England,
but the produce of it is very rarely acceptable.
26o THE RE VIVAL OF ETCHING IN ENGLAND.
absolutely deprived of all encouragement in money,* and was
kept alive only by the occasional labours of a few painters
who pursued it in their hours of leisure. It was rather
fashionable at one time amongst ladies as an amusement, and
a manual of the process was published for their guidance ; but
an art which taxes to the utmost the powers of the most
accomplished artists, and their patience, is not well chosen as
a pastime, and is seldom persevered in long. .
In looking to the future of etching in this country, I have
some hopes, but they are of a very moderate kind. The
Portfolio will go on doing its work, and prevent the appear-
ance of an etching from being utterly unfamiliar. Once
in a century some genius may appear and attract atten-
tion to the art, as Mr. Haden did. But before etching can
ever be generally understood in England there must be a
complete revolution in the national habit of thinking about
art The majority of Englishmen have hitherto believed art
to be simply ^n imitation of nature ; they must learn to think
of it as an interpretation ; they have believed it to be the
work of the eye and the hand ; they must learn to think of it
as "the work of the mind."
* Except in the case of Mr. Haden, and even in his case, the encouragement
came unexpectedly after the plates were published at his own risk, and not as an
inducement to etch them.
CHAPTER II.
TURNER.
TN a work devoted exclusively to one branch of art, it
may be thought that artists ought to be studied only in
that; but I find that their labours in other departments
throw light upon all their work, and when a painter has
done great things on copper, it is always interesting to know
what he has done on canvas. There is no difficulty here with
regard to Turner ; his pictures are so well known, even the
collection which was his bequest to the nation represents him
in all respects so perfectly, that every reader who cares about
art, and has been in London, is sure to have formed an opinion
of Turner from the original documents themselves. Even in
the case of American or colonial readers, the engravings from
Turner's pictures in oil and water-colour give an idea of his
quality as a painter sufficiently comprehensive for our purpose.
Of all his powers, the one which just now most immedi-
ately concerns us is the minute subdivision of weights of
colour, as lights and darks, which made his tonality so ela-
borate, so much more elaborate than that of the landscape-
painters who preceded him. This was the technical quality
which, more than any other, made his works translate them-
selves so well in engraving. I have said that perfect tonality
in etching is difficult and rare ; there are instances of it, but
these instances are not numerous. If we could suppose the
position of a critic who, whilst remaining entirely ignorant of
what Turner had done as an etcher, had nevertheless made
himself conversant with the works of all the notable etchers,
262 TURNER,
we should not be far wrong in guessing that the critic's
strongest feeling of curiosity about the etchings of Turner
would be concentrated on this one point — ^their tonality. He
would be anxious to ascertain how far this great master of
tonality had overcome the difficulty of it in etching ; and if
with this feeling he came across a collection of Turner's
plates, he would be much disappointed. Turner was a first-
rate etcher au trait, but he did not trust himself to carry out
chiaroscuro in etching, and habitually resorted to mezzotint
for his light and shade. His etchings were always done from
the banning with reference to the whole arrangement of the
chiaroscuro, and he never laid a line with the needle without
entire understanding of its utility in effect But the effect
itself, in Turner's etchings, is always reserved for mezzotint,
and it results from this habit of his, that Turner is not so good
an example for etchers, or so interesting a master to study, as
if he had trusted to pure etching for everything.
I had promised myself in this part of the book to avoid
technical matters as far as might be possible, because it
appears that when general readers come upon technical ex-
planations they have a way of skipping them. But with
reference to mezzotint and etching, and the manner of their
combination, some explanation of this kind is inevitable.
An etched shade, as the reader is already aware, is produced
by lines which are drawn with a point on a varnished plate
(the point removing the varnish where it passes), and after-
wards bitten in with aquafortis ; but a shade in mezzotint is
left, and the passages in mezzotint which are perfectly white
are the places where the plate has been scraped till the bur is
all gone, and then polished with a burnisher. When etching
and mezzotint are used in combination on the same plate, the
etching is done first, and in simple lines, which are bitten in
more deeply than they would be if the plate were intended
to remain a pure etching; then the plate is roughened all
over with a tool on purpose., and which produces bur — that is,
TURNER. 263
a raising of little points of copper. These little points, which
are raised by millions, all catch the ink in printing, and would
yield an intense black if they were not removed. They are
accordingly partially removed with the scraper when lighter
darks are required, and the lighter the passage the more the
bur is cleared away, till finally in high lights it is removed
altogether, and the plate in these places is burnished. Now,
the difference between etching with a view to mezzotint, and
etching with no such intention, is very great The etcher for
mezzotint is satisfied with selecting and laying down the most
necessary and expressive lines, the great guiding lines, and
does not trouble himself about shading, except so far as to
leave the plate in a condition to be shaded properly in mezzo-
tint : whereas the worker in pure etching not only gives the
selected and expressive guiding lines, but portions of shade
along with them, and at the same time ; and the more skilful
he is as an etcher, the more simultaneous he is in method,
giving shade and line together from the beginning, especially
if he works in the acid.
The power of Turner as an etcher was his power of select-
ing main lines, and drawing them firmly and vigorously. In
this respect no landscape etcher ever surpassed him ; and if
his etchings are studied as examples of line selection, they can
do nothing but good, if we only bear in mind that they are
preparations for mezzotint
Another point that we cannot safely lose sight of is, that
they were not intended to be printed in black, but in a rich
reddish brown, so that the fear of over-biting was considerably
lessened, and in the heavy foreground markings Turner did
not hesitate to corrode the lines to such a depth that the paper
was really embossed in the printing, and a student of art who
had become blind, might recognise a particular plate by pass-
ing his fingers over the back of the impressed proof. One of
the most curious instances of this is the " Jason " in the " Liber
Studiorum." There is a shadow under the tree to .the left,
264 TURNER.
which is like the bars of a portcullis. The scales of the dragon,
the heavy indications of trees, the foreground markings of
vegetation, are all so bitten that the paper shows them behind
in deeply sunken hollows. From these tremendous corrosions.
Turner passed to light indications of distance, as, for instance,
in the unpublished plate of Dumbarton, which gives one of
the most delicate and charming distances ever etched. There
is a small rough etching of Eton, with a man ploughing, with-
out mezzotint, which is a good instance of Turner's tendencies
in biting, and is one of the most interesting of his attempts,
because it shows in exaggeration the sort of quality he aimed
at in etching.
It is not fair or just to Turner to judge him as an etcher
by taking proofs of plates which were obviously intended for
mezzotint, and many of which have since received mezzotint,
either from his own hand or that of his engraver. From a
desire to economise time, or perhaps simply from imitation
of Claude's " Liber Veritatis," Turner never relied upon etching
to render effect, and does not seem ever to have studied it as
an independent art. The kind of work he aimed at in etching
was an indication of form, like the pen-work with which he
would often add firmness and precision to a sepia drawing.
The wash with the brush was to be imitated in mezzotint, and
the difference between his combination of sepia and pen-draw-
ing, and his combination of mezzotint and etching, was chiefly
a difference in the order of procedure. When he worked on
paper, the broad washes were first given, and the pen-markings
added at the last ; but when he worked on copper, the lines
were etched first, and then the shades added by himself or
another engraver. This reversal of method offered, of course,
no difficulty whatever to Turner, who, having a perfect hold
of his subject, could treat it in any way he liked ; and what I
infer from his choice of this combination is, that Turner was
not anxious to win celebrity as an etcher, but merely used
etching and mezzotint as the most convenient processes
TURNER. 265
for rendering his sepia studies. In this want of an etcher's
ambition lies the distinction between Turner and some other
great men who have employed the process. He made use of
etching as an auxiliary, and worked well within the limits of
the sort of etching he proposed to himself, but he never tried
what the process was capable of. It would have been much
more interesting to students of this particular art, if Turner
had been thrown entirely on his own resources, without the
help of mezzotint ; and it would have been especially interest-
ing to see how far in pure etching he could have rendered the
marvellous subdivisions of tonic values which we wonder at in
his pictures and drawings. As a mezzotint engraver. Turner
ranks exceedingly high, but his merits in that art are be-
yond our present purpose. One thing, however, cannot be
outside of our province, the possibility which etching pos-
sesses of happy combination with mezzotint, and of which
Turner so successfully availed himself It is certainly a
fortunate quality in an art to be complementary of another
art, so that the two together produce results of remarkable
value at a minimum cost of labour. The great freedom and
force of the etched line, its immense power of firm and rapid
indication, are exactly the qualities in which mezzotint is most
deficient; and though etching can by shading, especially if
helped by dry-point work, arrive at chiaroscuro not less
elaborate than that of the mezzotint engraver, it achieves
this at an expense of toil and effort which it is not an exaggera-
tion to estimate at three times the labour which he gives for
the same result It is remarkable that, in spite of the value
now attached to the prints in the "Liber Studiorum," this
marriage of two arts so naturally complementary has not been
more frequently repeated ; but when Turner issued these
plates they had little success, quantities of fine proofs from
them were used to light fires, and if they have risen since then
in market value, so that a complete set of them is now worth
hundreds of pounds, the rise is to be attributed, not to any
a66 TURNER.
appreciation of their quality as art, but to the fame which
Turner acquired in other ways, and chiefly by popular en-
gravings from his water-colour drawings. When an artist has
once become famous, people buy his works whether they like
them or not, and they end by believing that they like them ;
but the prints in the "Liber Studiorum" have never been
really popular, and even now, when the public may still get
some of them for a few shillings each, they generally prefer
a showy print from Landseer or Frith. The combination of
etching with mezzotint may, however, as art-culture advances,
become sufliciently popular to be employed in landscape
illustration on a more extensive scale ; and if this should ever
be, the etchers of the future will have the advantage of models,
in the etchings of Turner, of which it is not too much to say
that on all technical points, in the application of artistic
judgment to method, they are so sound and safe as to be
beyond criticism.
Of his mental grasp, of his imagination, it is scarcely neces-
sary to speak here, but a few words on the preparatory studies
which led to his success as an etcher will not be out of place.
He was much in the habit of drawing forms with the point of
a sharply cut and rather hard lead pencil, and the transition
from this to the etching needle was natural and easy. In his
system of study he divided form from light and shade, and
afterwards carried out the division in his etchings, using the
needle for form and the scraper for light and shade ; but there
is a subtle difference between his etchings and his point-draw-
ings. In the point-drawings, form is often indicated with very
little reference to light and shade ; in the etchings the arrange-
ment for chiaroscuro is always present in Turner's mind when
he lays his lines, and he omits all lines which interfere with it,
or even which are simply useless to it. This is a great secret,
an open secret, yet one hidden from many artists and nearly
all amateurs.
It would not be right to leave Turner without acknow-
TURNER. 267
ledgment of the very unusual manliness of his manner as an
etcher, a manliness unfortunately rare in the English school
His g^rasp of rock and tree and mountain, his feeling of
wildness on desolate moor and black tarn, his fisherman's
sense of the strength of stout old boats, his understanding
generally of the nature of material resistance in everything,
are so masculine, that a few touches of his reveal more of the
true nature of matter in any form than the most laboured
work of our imitative school. A power of this kind is felt at
once by minds which are themselves capable of the same
masculine perception, though in far inferior degree, but it is
not possible to convey by explanation in what this power
consists. It is not in thickness of lines, or in depth of biting,
or in manual decision, for a line may be both broad and deep
and decided, and yet indicate no perception of the nature of
an object : it is in his intense sense of the nature of things
that such a man as Turner finds the elements of his force.
And a sense of this kind does not lead to popularity, because
it does not lead to prettiness. I have never met with a person
not artistically educated who, without being prompted, saw
anything in the etchings of Turner, still less perceived that
they were the strongest things done in modern times with the
etching needle. The perception of the nature of matter is
very rare in the educated classes, because education is far too
exclusively literary, and the most obtuse men in this respect
are the men of erudition. It would be easier to explain
such a power as this of Turner to a carpenter, or a stone-
cutter, or a boat-builder, than to a man who knows nothing
except books.
jEsactis and Hesperia, — Of all Turner's etchings this is the
most remarkable for the grace and freedom of its branch-
drawing. It is a piece of simple brook scenery, and materials
not less graceful exist in abundance in all northern countries
which are watered by running streams. iEsacus, the son of
268 TURNER.
Priam, sought Hesperia in the woods ; and Turner, with that
love for water which characterises all true landscape-painters,
has assig^ned as the place of their fatal meeting one of those
sweet little solitudes which from time immemorial have been
dear to poets and lovers. She is seated on the gently sloping
ground at the edge of a shining pool ; the water has been
lately di\dded by stones, which to the left of the etching rise
visibly above its surface, but it pauses at the feet of Hesperia,
where she sits, as she thinks, alone. i£sacus, still unperceived
by her, has just discovered her, as he breaks through the
branching fern. Over the head of the nymph bends a boldly-
slanting tree, and where its boughs mingle, to the left, there
is a passage of such involved and wild and intricate beauty,
that I can scarcely name its equal in the works of the master-
etchers. Over the head of iGsacus, and between the trunks
of the two principal trees, is a glade full of tender passages of
light, which are chiefly due to the work in mezzotint, so that
this plate may be taken as a transcendent example of Turner's
power in both arts. The brilliant freedom of the etched
branches, the mellow diffusion of light in the tinted glade, are
both achievements of the kind which permanently class an
artist
Dumbarton (unpublished). — This plate was no doubt pre-
pared for mezzotint, but it is in some respects an advantage
for our present purpose that the mezzotint has not been added.
It is scarcely probable, considering the disposition of the lines,
that the effect of light and shade was intended to be a powerful
one. The artistic motive of the composition was space and
beauty, rather than force and contrast The view is wide and
fair, and the last waves of the granite ocean which tosses its
highest crests on Cruachan and Ben Nevis come undulating
here in long slopes to the edge of the lowland plain. Out of
the Clyde the last expression of the exhausted mountain
energy rises far off — the fortress-rock of Dumbarton. Against
this beautiful distance. Turner will bring no rudely contrasting
TURNER. 269
tree, but gives us the slender and delicate acacia,* with all its
pendent flowers. Leading thus from the faint lines of the
distance to the stronger work of the foreground, he has
obtained by this transition a natural passage to the massiveness
of the great trees to the left The reader is especially entreated
to allow himself to receive impartially the full and sweet
amenity of this composition, for there are etchings of Turner
in which his many-sided mind sought qualities very different
from amenity.
Weedy foreground, Man ploughing, — ^This etching is not
to be confounded with the larger plate of the same subject
which was afterwards engraved in mezzotint Over the plough
is a view of Eton College, and space has been left in the middle
of the plough for the introduction of another figure : to the
left a woman sits with a baby in her arms. The weeds in the
foreground are very heavily bitten, so as to give an impression
of great coarseness, but there is an etcher's intelligence even
in the rude marking. This habit of over-biting was due, as I
have already observed, to Turner's preparation for mezzotint,
and intention of printing in warm brown instead of black.
It cannot be recommended for imitation, unless under the
same conditions.
Inverary Pier. Loch Fyne, Morning. — This view of
Inverary shows as well as anything, in the " Liber Studiorum,"
what sort of duty Turner intended his coarse etched lines to
do. The combination of etching with mezzotint was a marriage
of two opposite arts. Turner, therefore, avoided in his work
with the needle every kind of labour which might intrude upon
the domain of mezzotint ; he even did more than this, and
purposely sought in every etched line a quality the very
opposite of that softness and tenderness of tint which became
his chief objects when he took up the tools of the engraver.
The striking contrast between methods of work in this plate
* The tree looks like an acacia (Robinia), but it is far north for one at Dum-
barton, except perhaps in a garden.
27© TURNER.
is focussed in the very centre of it The pale mountain
towards Glen Falloch is engraved with aerial delicacy; the
qioming shadows fall in soft gradations from the risen wreaths
of mist, and against the very tenderest passage of all, the
opening of the distant glen, come the stiff mast and coarse
sail of a fishing-boat, of the firmest and boldest execution.
The heavily etched anchor rising out of the shallow water in
the for^^und sets its iron rigidity, by a similar contrast of
method, against the soft and liquid surface. To the left this
coarseness loses itself more gradually in greater manual
refinement, and the transition from the dark boat under the
pier to the far trees on the edge of the wooded hill is managed
by a subtle blending of lighter and shallower bitings with rich
full shades of mezzotint The engraving here, as in the
''iEsacus and Hesperia," was all done by Turner's own hand.
Jason. — When I use the word "coarse" in speaking of
the etchings of Turner, or any other master, let it not be
understood in the artistic or intellectual sense, but only in
the common acceptation of the word, as we say that canvas
is coarse when the threads of it are thick and the spaces large.
There is as much artistic feeling in coarse canvas as in the
finest web from the Indian loom, and the coarseness or fine-
ness of a woven tissue is a quality merely relative to the
keenness of human sight. The work in Turner's "Jason,"
which in common language may be justly called coarse
because the lines of it are thick and deep, is, in the intellectual
sense, considerably more refined than the most minute work
of the modem English and Germans. The combination of
the highest mental refinement with some roughness of
material accompaniment is as natural as that other very
common combination, of perfect visible finish with low intel-
lectual culture. The reader may remember Mr. Ruskin's
vivid commentary on the imaginative force in the conception
of this dragon ; and it may be observed with reference
especially to etching that its merely executive qualities are
TURNER. 271
always, when in perfection, dependent on imagination. The
few rude strokes by which this dragon is made to live and
writhe, are, considered merely as etched lines, of a quality
incomparably superior to the most careful imitation of scales
which laborious dulness could achieve with a month's toil ;
and so with the wild branches of the fallen trunk on which
Jason leans as he watches his enemy, and the hasty sketching
of the skeleton in the corner. Of the mezzotint work I say
nothing, because it is not by Tumer^s own hand.
Calm, — This subject is one of the most valuable in the
** Liber Studiorum," as an illustration of the distinct purposes
to which Turner applied etching and mezzotint. It is a
group of boats on glassy sea, within a mile of shore. There
is a small boat in the immediate foreground, with five figures
in it and no sail ; the central group is composed of hay-boats
and fishing-boats, their sails hanging idly from the masts to
catch the expected breeze. The cock-boat, with the figures,
is etched as coarsely and vigorously as possible ; the two
fishing-boats in the centre are etched with moderate strength ;
a hay-boat beyond is just indicated with the needle, and
beyond that the vessels are hardly etched at all, being made
out, almost exclusively, by various delicate tints obtained with
the scraper and burnisher. This is one of the most admirable
examples of complete tonality in the whole range of Turner's
works, but its value in this respect depends little upon the
etched lines. The lines are right and true in their places,
and could not be spared ; they give by their force an extra-
ordinary delicacy to the mezzotint, but almost all the tonic
values are obtained in mezzotint alone. It is evident that
Turner looked upon etching merely as the skeleton of his
work, and relied upon mezzotint for its softer beauty and
more attractive charm.
Little DeviVs Bridge^ over the Russ above Altdorft, — The
heavy etching of the rock and pines to the left, and of the
riven tree on the isolated central rock, has the artistic advan-
0
272 TURNER.
tage of harmonising with the rugged material. When the
for^^und is occupied by things whose nature is opposed to
human effeminacy, and affords enjoyment to none but our
hardiest instincts, the iron pencil may be blunt and strong,
and the hand of the artist resolute ; but we might not safely
infer from the success of such work as this that it would be
well to apply a like method to all foregrounds. A living
aquafortist has advanced the theory that all forqrround work
should be open and coarse, and that the lines should become
finer and closer as they recede into the distance. In the case
of a subject of this kind the theory is sound ; but when,
instead of an impression of wildness, we would convey an
invitation to repose, it may be wiser to allure the spectator
by surfaces which promise him ease. Mountain scenery
has hitherto been very incompletely illustrated in etching.
There are immense difHculties in the treatment of distant
effect which have not yet been overcome either by the old
masters or our contemporaries. Tumer^s use of mezzotint
was an evasion of these difHculties, and the effect of drifting
mist and broken light beyond the bridge in this design is
rendered in pure mezzotint
PLATE X.
ROCKS AND PINES,
After J. M. W. TURNER, RA.
Copied by tlu Autlwr.
PLATE X.
{To be pLacccl opposite page 272.)
Rl)CKs and Pines, after J. M. W. Turner, R.A.
Copied by the Author,
TIjIs is a pt'iti.'!! of the forc£:rouniI in Tumor's well-known plate ''Little Devil\s
Uridine over the Kiiss a]i«>ve Altvlorft, S\nt7.crlantL" The lines are given without
the mc7/.otint to ohow Turner's way of drawuig and biting his organic lines.
BITIXGS.
In Dutch MoRlant, heated to 90"* Fahrenheit.
The pines seen beyond the bridge
Tlie bridge itself
Tops of the nearest trees
Rocks and bottom of trunks .
Minutes,
14
44
64
77
In nitric batli composed of nitric acid and water in ev]ual prop>ortions.
Short immcr.sion lo cnlarce lines
First proof taken
Plate grounded for rebiting.
Plate rcbittcn with above nitric bath in the foreground
'4
The broadest lines enlarged just at last with pure nitric acid for thirty
seconds.
Secund proof taken.
PLite entirely covered wiih briu-li ground, and all omitted Unes drawn
in thcii [.ilacc.>.
Plate immersed in Dutch mordant healed as above .
60
Third pro'jf laACiL
This phito is i^rinlcd here quilc sim]>ly without 7\irous3n^c, and cleaned
\\\\.\\ the hand like a vi.-iiini'-cniil.
•3
CHAPTER III.
WILKIE AND GEDDES.
'IIT'ILKIE has left two or three etchings of first-rate
quality which entitle him to a high place in the ranks
of the genuine etchers. His etching of the " Pope examining
a Censer," and his dry-point of a gentleman sitting at his
desk writing a paper for which a man is waiting, hat in hand,
are both equal to the best work of the old masters, and on
these two plates alone a reputation may be securely founded.
His small etching, "Reading the Will," is very inferior in
manner of work, though its dramatic interest is considerable.
A felicitous combination of etching and dry-point may be
found in the third state of a small plate by Wilkie, called in
the British Museum " Boys and Dogs " The subject is two
boys, a girl, and a dog ; the boys are making a seat with their
hands for the girl, who is not yet seated, but superintends the
arrangement This etching is remarkable for the extreme
naturalness and ease of the attitudes, whilst the community
of purpose unites the little group very perfectly. In the first
state there is no dry-point work.
The characteristics of Wilkie's best plates are good com-
position and happy selection of line. His perception of
character was, no doubt, a very great and rare quality ; but
this will not save an etching from condemnation if, as etching,
the workmanship is commonplace or wrong. For instance, if
Wilkie had never done anything better than the ** Reading of
the Will," I should not have classed him amongst great
T
274 WILKIE AND GEDDES.
etchers. The dramatic conception is lively and good, but the
workmanship is uninteresting and commonplace.
Andrew Geddes was a good etcher, hitherto not sufficiently
appreciated. His dry-points are especially fine ; the one of
a little girl holding a pear is charming for its freedom and
grrace. There is a portrait by him with the odd title "Give
the Devil his Due," very luminous and well modelled ; and
another portrait of a lady in a hood, of which the reader is
recommended to study an early impression of the fourth state.
The hood is exceedingly fine in dry-point work. His " Head
of Martin, an auctioneer at Edinburgh," is very clever and
characteristic : I only know one state of it His landscape
without title (a clump of trees and wooden building under it)
is free, and right in workmanship. In the first state there is
no signature, and the sky is dirtied with sandpaper. In the
second state the sky is cleared, but light indications of cloud
are introduced : there is still no signature. In the third and
fourth states there is a signature in the right hand corner, and
a sulphur tint is introduced for cloud. Of these states the
second is technically the best, and may be taken as a fair
example of dry-point This landscape and " The little Girl
with the Pear," like the "Pope and Censer" and "Gentleman
at his Desk " of Wilkie, are enough of themselves to entitle
the author to honourable mention.
Wilkie. TIu Pope examining a Censer, — ^As this is one
of the finest etchings ever produced in England, it may be
worth while to inquire what are the sources of its power. The
draughtsmanship is of that happy kind which, fully possess-
ing precision, allows itself perfect freedom. There is a close
analogy between freedom of this kind and the freedom of the
most beautiful manners. Clowns have freedom amongst
themselves, but they have not manners ; semi-gentlemen have
manners without freedom, because they think about rules, and
force themselves into a disciplined conformity ; but in the
WILKIE AND GEDDES. 275
perfect gentleman the time of discipline is past, and his
manners are as free as if he had never submitted to it. The
work in this etching is so easy, and at the same time, where
necessary, so accurate and precise, that if it were the only
production of its author we should infer from it the long
labours of his youth. The firm drawing of the Pope's face and
the fingers of the left hand, the true and graceful festooning of
the rapid lines which indicate the censer-chains, contain the
two extremes of freedom and precision in method, between
which the greatest etchers range at will. The Pontiff has a
royal naturalness of attitude, and quietly examines the work
of the goldsmith, who presents it humbly on his knees.
The seat of hands, — ^This plate has no title, but is marked
in the British Museum "Boys and Dogs." Two boys are
making a seat by grasping each other's arms, and a girl, who
is going to sit down upon it, is criticising the arrangement
A dog precedes the party. It is a graceful little subject, like
those which were often adopted by the best portriiit painters
of the last century in family groups. The execution is very
spirited and light The rich dry-point work in the third state
has much improved the plate. The opportunity is a good
one for marking the difference between curiosity-collecting and
the love of art. I know not whether the first state of this
plate is rare or common, but I know that if the first state
is rare, and the third common, all genuine collectors for
curiosity will pay ten times as much for the incomplete as
they would for the finished work. It is only artistic criti-
cism which sets the highest value on the latest states. Of
course the plate must not be worn, but a real judge knows
a good proof when he sees it without any mark of rarity to
guide him.
Gentleman at his Desk. — ^A gentleman is seated in a large
arm-chair, and is writing a receipt at his desk. A man is
waiting for the paper, and stands behind the chair. The
gentleman's wife is looking on whilst he writes. There is a
276 WILKIE AND GEDDES.
dog, which is scratching itself, and there are several small
details, such as a boot-jack, sticks, etc Next to the masterly
indication of character in the faces and attitudes, this plate is
remarkable for its sound quality of dry-point work. If the
reader is a practical etcher, he ought to study the rich effect
of the background, the darks under the bureau, and near the
gentleman's feet, and the slight yet sufficient indications of
detail
Reading tlie Will, — ^A lawyer, who is seated on an old-
fashioned chair, with his back to the light and a large table
before him, is reading a will to expectant heirs. The study
of expression is of the kind which made Wilkie popular, and
need not be expatiated upon in this place. Wilkie seems to
have hesitated between two directions as an aquafortist The
execution here is of the sort common in England, the execu-
tion of the " Pope and Censer " of a sort unfortunately not so
common. If etching were limited to work of this kind, it
would be truly no better than a somewhat easier substitute
for engraving ; having indeed the advantage of being executed
by the artist's own hand, but beyond this no special quality or
power. The steady equality of workmanship, the patience to
bring all things to an equal point of finish, may prove sanity
of mind and freedom from all morbid irritability of nerve, but
it proves also some dulness of perception by its very impar-
tiality, and a state of mind which differs from the high artistic
spirit by its perceptible tendency towards Philistinism. For
Philistinism penetrates even into the very realm of art itself,
and may be always known, even in its feeblest manifestation,
by a sort of prosy conscientiousness.
Geddes. Little girl Iwlding a pear, — She is seated on the
ground, and wears a white dress ; her head is relieved against
a dark tree ; she holds out a pear in her left hand. The dress
is very slightly indicated. The whole work is in dry-point.
WILKIE AND GEDDES, 277
It is so natural and graceful that it reminds us of the portraits
of children in the best age of English portraiture.
Landscape. — In cases where there is no title, which too
frequently happens with etchings, it becomes necessary to give
some brief description by which the plate alluded to may be
recognised. In this we have a clump of trees and a wooden
building. In the foreground to the left there is a low arch in
the earth, built of stone. In the later states there is a dark
cloud behind the building. With the exception of the cloud
the plate is executed in dry-point The subject is simple, and
Geddes was not a master of landscape, but his manner of
treatment suited the means used, and it may easily happen
that accomplished landscape painters, by attempting more,
arrive at less satisfactory results.
CHAPTER IV.
RUSKIN.
TT has been one of my purposes in the course of this volume
to direct the reader's attention to the most opposite kinds
of etching, in order that he might fully appreciate the versati-
lity of the art, and have the widest possible field for technical
choice if he intended to practise it Mr. Ruskin's work in
etching is very different from that of all the artists whom we
have hitherto been studying, and, therefore, for that very
reason, if for no other, would probably deserve our attention.
But Mr. Ruskin has other claims than the originality which
springs from perfect sincerity. He draws landscape and
architecture with the most delicate feeling and the clearest
knowledge, so that, although not professionally an artist, he is
certainly an accomplished practical student of art
Mr. Ruskin's merits as a draughtsman would perhaps have
obtained a more general and decided recognition if they had
not been overshadowed by his celebrity as a writer. The dis-
position to deny capacity in two different occupations is so
strong, that a good writer has always a peculiar difficulty in
obtaining recognition as a painter or draughtsman. This
prejudice is especially strong amongst professional painters,
who are generally slow to admit the merits of a student who
is what is called an " amateur," that is, who does not labour
for his bread. If they cannot deny the excellence of his work,
they will sometimes even go' so far as to say "he did not do
it ; some artist did it for him." *
* An instance of this came one day under my own observation, and is mentioned
here because the case is a typical one. I was looking through the portfolios of an
RUSKIN. 279
The exact truth about Mr. Ruskin's work in practical art
seems to be this : — He is a thorough student, but not an artist,
and if not an artist it is rather from self-imposed limitations
than from any natural incapacity. I am not sure, however, that
in his thinking about art Mr. Ruskin has ever got quite clear
of the prevalent English conception of it as a simple imitation
of nature, already noticed in the chapter on the revival of
etching in England, and his practice seems to have been sub-
servient to this conception. The desire to represent nature as
in a mirror, and the feeling that the work is safe from criticism
when this is done as nearly as the means at the disposal of
the artist will permit, appears to lie beneath Mr. Ruskin's
practice and to account, at the same time, for its merits and
for its limitations. The mirror-theory advocated at Oxford
may be taken as evidence of this, and there is a sentence in
the preface to the fourth volume of Modern Painters which, in
a very few words, conveys to us the author's views of artistic
responsibility. Speaking of his own beautiful drawing, which
was engraved as a frontispiece to the third volume under the
title " Lake, Land, and Cloud," the author says — " the sky is a
little too heavy for the advantage of the landscape below ; but
I am not answerable for the sky. It was there!'
For this view of artistic responsibility all that can be justly
eminent painter who is usually very severe in his criticism of Mr. Ruskin, and
finding one of the best soft-ground etchings in the " Seven Lamps of Architecture,"
I thought the opportunity a good one for bringing my friend to admit some artbtic
capability in the etcher. To my great surprise, he entirely agreed in all I had to
say in favour of the plate ; but when I came to the conclusion, and congratulated
my friend on having overcome his prejudices against the author of the "Seven
Lamps," he answered me with the following syllogism : " A man ignorant of art
cannot produce a good etching. Ruskin is ignorant of art, therefore Ruskin has
not produced this etching."
The fact that the plate was signed y, R, del. d sc. made no difference, and of
course the more I showed the command of means of which the plate gave evidence,
the less would my friend believe it to be Mr. Ruskin*s work. Every good quality
in the work of art was considered, not as evidence that Mr. Ruskin was an artist,
but that, being an amateur, he could not have done it.
28o RUSKIN,
said is that it may be admissible with reference to a study,
done for the student's own private instruction, and not in-
tended to be shown to the public Suppose the case of an
artist and his pupil working together from nature. The artist
says, " your sky is a little too heavy for the advantage of the
landscape below ; " the pupil replies, " I am not answerable
for the sky, it was tlureV What, after such a defence, would
be the master's most fitting rejoinder ? It would be something
of this kind. He would say — "Well, as a simple piece of
imitation it may pass, since you tell me that the sky was there,
but it would be well for you to begin to exercise your
judgment as an artist, and if this were a picture, instead of a
mere memorandum, you would be fully answerable for the
sky, and for everything else, whether it was there in nature or
not"
Mr. Ruskin is not alone in the belief that it is possible for
an artist to relieve himself from all the higher artistic respon-
sibilities, on the plea that what he has represented is a fact
It is a prevalent national error to believe this, and to think
that the test of truth is final* It is not final. The essence of
art is not to copy arrangements which actually exist, but to
make more admirable arrangements of its own. When the
sky does not suit the landscape (which very often happens),
* I well remember being in the studio of an artist in London when a picture
by a younger painter was shown to me, and I criticised it on the ground that a
sharply-defined patch of very vivid green grass was injurious to the balance of
colour. ** I am not answerable for the grass," said the painter, " it was there^'*
Then the elder artist said *' Woxild you have him alter nature ? " Neither of them
seemed to be aware that an artist could be expected to exercise generalship over
his material. They seemed to think that if I did not acknowledge the infallibility
of nature it must be in deference to some conventional rule, and they said that, in
their opinion, nature was a better authority than conventionalism. Now what I
advocate is not authoritative conventionalism, but the use of the mind in art, the
exercise of the artist's own judgment, of his own taste and good sense, in selection,
omission, emphasis, all in his original way, without reference to any conventional
rules whatever. The one thing which seems to me essentially unartistic is the
abdication of imperial faculties in order to bind down eye and hand to the servile
copyism of matter.
RUSKIN. 281
the true artist invents or remembers another sky which does
suit it, or he alters the landscape itself to enable it to support
the sky, getting harmony, at any rate, by an exercise of his
masterful will This exercise of judgment and will is an
essential part of the work and duty of the artist, and he cannot
decline it, or excuse himself on the plea of fidelity to the facts.
I have said this so plainly, that it looks like a condemna-
tion of Mr. Ruskin's practical work in art, but it is not intended
to be that, it is intended only to mark a limit. Mr. Ruskin's
speciality in art has been to make studies^ and he makes them
admirably well. Practical art, in his case, has been much
more a means of acquiring knowledge than of displaying his
personal force, which has been exercised (very powerfully)
through his writings. Now when drawing is employed either
simply to acquire knowledge or simply to communicate it, the
work does not challenge the highest aesthetic criticism.
Mr. Ruskin's etchings are of two distinct kinds, in soft-
ground and in the ordinary ground. In soft-ground etching
the plate is covered as usual, but the ground is mixed with
tallow to prevent it from hardening, and a piece of paper is
laid over it, on which the artist makes his drawing with a lead
pencil. When the paper is removed it brings off with it ground
enough from the surface of the copper to expose the latter
exactly to such a degree that the acid, in biting, will give a
granular appearance, like pencil marks on paper that is slightly
rough. This is transferred to the paper on which the etching
is printed, so that the proof has much of the quality of a
pencil drawing, or of a lithograph, but it may be helped by
subsequent work with the point after the plate has been
covered with the ordinary ground. Reserves of pure white
amidst dark shading may be made anywhere, even in minute
quantities, by touches of varnish with the brush before the
plate is bitten.
Mr. Ruskin used this process to illustrate the Seven Lamps
of Architecture^ but apologised to the reader " for the hasty and
a82 RUSKIN.
imperfect execution of the plates." " Desiring merely to make
them illustrative of my meaning, I have sometimes very com-
pletely failed even of that humble aim ; and the text, being
generally written before the illustration was completed, some-
times naively describes as sublime or beautiful features which
the plate represents by a blot" The sincerity of this self-
criticism was proved later by the withdrawal of these etchings
from the work, and the substitution for them of engravings
from drawings by the author.
The plain truth appears to be that the soft-ground process
involves just the same difficulty of biting as the point process,
whilst there is an additional uncertainty about laying the
copper bare to the exact d^^ee which the artist desires, hence
the liability to " blot," and rebiting is more difficult than in
line etching, if indeed it is not altogether impossible. Nor is
there anything in the result which is positively superior to
lithography, except a mere matter of convenience in getting
rid of the weight and fragility of lithog^phic stones, a con-
venience which is counterbalanced by the greater cheapness
of lithographic printing. For these reasons I intend to say
no more about soft-ground etching in this volume, except that
if the reader wishes to study it more thoroughly, he will find
examples of it in Cotman's works.*
Mr. Ruskin's work with the point in the ordinary ground
is either from studies of his own or after Turner. It is always
delicate in drawing, but intentionally very simple in the biting,
and, therefore, in comparison with the powerful and complex
work of the best professional etchers, it is elementary. The
• Soft-ground etching is one of those processes which appear extremely easy
when you read a description of them, but which are treacherous and difficult in
reality. You have nothing to do but draw with a pencH, remove your paper, and
bite. This is the technical theory, but in practice we find that details are often
muddled together, that intended gradations are often either spoiled or wholly
absent, and that weights of tone often come in wrong relations in the biting. The
process gives wonderful texture, however, sometimes, and for certain things, and
a quality in some shades not unlike the good quality of the new pkctogravure.
RUSKIN. 283
reader may study it with advantage for the extreme truth of its
forms and the accurate observation, whether of nature or of
art, which is proved by the choice of line and of shade. If
Mr. Ruskin has not gone farther in the direction of complete
chiaroscuro, we know that it is because he cares too much for
truth of light and shade to trust anything elaborate to so
hazardous a means of engraving as the acid bath. When he
wants a chiaroscuro study to be reproduced in its full strength,
he does not etch it, but has it engraved by Mr. Armytage or
Mr. Lupton. The wisdom of this is beyond dispute, yet it is
not always necessary that art should be faultless in execution
in order to produce its impression upon the mind. The
imperfect etchings in the Seven Lamps are of themselves a suffi-
cient proof of this. Their imperfection is seen at once, and as
quickly forgiven — forgiven for the sake of the life and feeling
which make them precious in spite of it What does it matter
that some details should be blotted here and there, some
shades bitten too much or too little, when the result is that
ideas of nobleness or power are, if not quite accurately
expressed, at least very vividly suggested }
Capital from the lower arcade of the Dog^s Palace ^ Venice. —
When the Seven Lamps of Architecture was published many
years ago, I knew little about any tine art, and less perhaps
of etching than of others which came habitually in my way ;
but this capital from the Doge's palace, from its magniticent
depth of shadow and the imaginative grandeur of its foliage
and birds, always had a singular attraction for me, and
increased my enjoyment of Gothic capitals generally. It is
rather a note of shadows than a study of forms, but the forms
themselves owe half their grandeur to the shadows they cast
The loss of detail in the shadows is not entirely defensible,
because there are generally reflections strong enough to show
more detail than is visible here ; but the hints and suggestions
in this etching have a stronger effect upon the imagination
284 RUSKIN.
than work more completely made out, and it is to be ac-
counted a merit that whatever else is lost the artistic aspect
is always preserved, or at least its preservation has been the
etcher's principal aim. The first springing of the massive
mouldings above the capital suggests the weight of the entire
arch ; and though the system of light and shade resembles too
closely that of photography, there is a life in the marking of
the wild foliage and quaint long-beaked storks which photo-
graphy would not have given, for it is not wholly attributable
to him who carved the stone : the stone-cutter left, no doubt,
the lines of that cornice more simply mechanical than we see
them here, and for the picturesque charm of its now broken
and various surface we have to thank the artistic feeling of
the etcher. A classical designer neither could nor would
draw architecture in this way, because if a line had been
straight at first he would restore its straightness and draw it
rigidly with a ruler, ignoring accident and decay. Mr.
Ruskin's opposition to the classical spirit has been rather
artistic than philosophical ; but a man who aspires to be an
etcher can scarcely hate classicism too ardently, and a- single
piece of cornice drawn mechanically, like the Roman Gate of
Autun in the " Saint Symphorien " of Ingres, would go farther
to ruin an etching than any of the technical imperfections in
this.
Part of the Cathedral of Saint Lo, Normandy. — An arch
with small statues under canopies, above it a light gable filled
with tracery and decorated with crockets, terminating in a
finial. Behind this gable is a light gallery of tracery, at the
angles of which are pinnacles. There are several defective
and weak parts in this etching, but it is delightful for a
pathetic fidelity. Observe how every fragment of the beauti-
ful broken foliage between the crockets is noticed and recorded,
and how entirely free is the etcher from any temptation to
restore the fragments which are lost. When a stone is so far
decayed that the sharp lines of its sculpture are all gone, the
RUSKIN. 285
mysterious hints of form which still remain in it are studied
with unabated interest The difference between this loving
and reverential spirit and the feeling which prompts French
municipalities to pull down such work as this because it is
out of repair, marks the antagonism between artistic and
bourgeoises ideas. On one side we have the love for nobleness
and a pathetic interest in the broken remnants of a glorious
art ; on the other a total indifference to artistic grandeur and a
mean intolerance of the marks of time. One of the character-
istics of modem Philistinism, both in England and France, is
its love of neatness and newness, and its incapacity to see what
is venerable in buildings or in men.
Window from the Cd Foscari, Venice. — When artists draw
architecture well, they have always a strong constructive
instinct, a sense of the weight and strength of the materials,
and a knowledge of the uses to which they are put The
great massiveness and solidity of the simple Venetian tracery
was never rendered in a way at once so powerful in effect and
so explanatory of construction. We see how the heavy stones
were hewn and placed, and we know why the dark glass was
set so far behind the sharp, plain cusps. The first merit of an
aquafortist is the power of explaining structure.
Arch from the fagade of the Church of San Michele at
Lucca, — Not entirely successful in the biting, one or two cast
shadows being exactly of the same weight with the shaded
side of the projections which cast them ; and yet, in spite of
this, and the excessive sacrifice of detail in shade, an etching
of more than usual interest, not only for the quaint richness
of its material, but for the bold preservation of local colour in
full light The richness of the soft-ground process and its
suitableness for architectural illustration have seldom been
more completely exhibited, but after the removal of the var-
nish the plate has been reinforced with the point, whose assist-
ance is seldom altogether unneeded. There are grammatical
faults in the tonality, as, for instance, in the shadow on the
286 J^USKIN.
white and dark marble of the arch, which is of precisely the
same force on both ; but there are valuable gradations in the
sculptured mouldings, and much interesting variety of line.
The light on the wall behind the arcade, between the columns
under the shadow of the arch, is the best bit of illumination
in the whole plate.
Pass of Faido. Simple tcpograpky. — An etching in few
lines, without any indication of light-and-shade, having for its
unique purpose the clear expression of the truth about moun-
tain form. The principal exercise of the mind in such work
as this lies in the selection of those lines which are most ex-
pressive of structure. This is a kind of drawing which would
be very useful to men of science if they could do anything so
truthful, which by some strange fatality they never can. As
I look at it, I think what a pity it is that De Saussure^ for
example, had not been trained to work of this kind, instead of
being dependent upon the feeble draughtsmanship of his
assistants and the miserable engravers who reproduced their
drawings. The means used here are as simple as they pos-
sibly can be. The main lines are given, and a few markings,
that is alL There is no modelling and no illumination. Local
colour also is omitted. Yet with all these omissions such is
the explanatory power of the line that the mountain forms are
made plain to us.
For a scientific purpose, this kind of etching may be most
useful, but it cannot be practised by an artist without danger.
It is perilous for him, because in doing it he would no longer see
all the elements of landscape effect simultaneously, and give
a resume of the whole, but would look only for the outline
and certain markings which exhibit construction, so becoming
blind to many other things which it concerns him equally
to observe. In a word, this etching is an example of abstrac-
tion, and abstraction of a kind which is rather scientific than
artistic.
There is a strong temptation to draw mountains on these
jRUSKIN. 287
principles from nature, because it is the only kind of deliberate
drawing which can be done from nature amongst mountain-
scenery at all If you study such scenery in light and shade
or in colour, your memoranda must be so rapid as to miss the
delicacy of the forms.
Crests of La CSte and Taconay, — ^A study of the same
kind as the preceding, but much more beautiful, on account
of the indescribable grace of the natural lines, which the artist
may have slightly exaggerated in his love for them. As an
etched study this is the most perfect thing of its kind I ever
met with. I doubt whether there is an artist living in England
who can draw mountains with Mr. Ruskin's knowledge of
structure and his lively sense of beauty, and I feel Confident
that there is nobody out of England who can. We know,
however, what a price has been paid for this knowledge, how
many seasons of patient labour amongst the Alps, what long
self-discipline in observation, and in the art of recording
observation.* Few can appreciate the veracity of such
drawing ; no one can value it as it deserves to be valued who
has not given many a day to labours of the same order in
some noble mountain-land.
* I shonld have been glad to speak of some plates done after Tnmer, bat can-
not do so in this place on account of my rale (a Tery necessary one) to confine
myself to original work. The only exception to this rule will be a chapter on
etching from pictures.
CHAPTER V.
WHISTLER.
JAMES WHISTLER is of American extraction, and
studied painting in France in the studio of Gleyre.
As a student he was capricious and irregular, and did not
leave the impression amongst his fellow-pupils that his
future would be in any way distinguished. He never
entirely submitted to the French academical discipline, and
his artistic education, like that of many English artists,
seems to have been mainly acquired by private and inde-
pendent study.
As an artist who by this time has fully expressed at
least his tendencies. Whistler may be fairly estimated now.
He has very rare and very peculiar endowments, and may
in a certain sense be called great, — that is, so far as great-
ness may be understood of faculties which are rather
remarkable for keenness and originality than range. The
faculties which he has are pre-eminently of the artistic
order ; he is essentially a painter and etcher, not a dramatist
or poet ; he is never literary, but always pictorial. And in
his pictures and etchings it is the most artistic points that
interest him most — not so much the natural material as
what may be done with it His oil-pictures are experiments
in colour-harmonies, and his etchings are notes of strange
concurrences of line. Whether he really loves anything I
have never been able to determine, but he has a predilection
for the wharves of the Thames, which, in a warmer tempera-
ment, would have grown into a strong affection. Whistler
WHISTLER. 289
seems from his works — I do not know him personally — to
be not altogether expansive or sympathetic, but sejf-con-
centrated and repellent of the softer emotions. His work is
often admirable, but it is rarely affecting, because we can so
seldom believe that the artist has himself been affected. It
is very observant, very penetrating, very sensitive even, in a
peculiar way, but not poetically sensitive. Though edu-
cated as a figure-painter. Whistler has given no proof of his
interest, either in the events of history or of the common life
around him ; and a figure, for him, is useful chiefly because
it can wear clothes of any colour he pleases. The only
people for whom he seems to have a sort of liking are the
Thames bargemen, and he has sketched them not unfaithfully,
with appropriate costume and short pipes. It would be
unfair, perhaps, to say that Whistler has no sense of beauty,
for he has evidently an instinct for beautiful arrangements
of colour, but it is not unfair to say that beauty of form is
not his object Indifference to beauty is, however, com-
patible with splendid success in etching, as the career of
Rembrandt proved. What an etcher needs is not so much
a sense of beauty as of expression and variety ; and if a
choice had to be made between the man who enjoyed beauty,
but enjoyed nothing else, and the man who, without any
especial appreciation of the beautiful, read in everything the
marks which tell the story of its existence, we may rely upon
it that the better etcher of the two would not be the slave of
beauty.
Whistler is a master of line, but not of chiaroscuro. There
is seldom in his etchings any large arrangement of light and
shade, and the resources of art in tonic values are often pre-
maturely exhausted, so that to complete the picture we should
need some pigment a great deal blacker than printer's ink.
The lighting of his subjects is usually very much scattered,
but this is in harmony with their medley of material, and
there is no reason why an effect of breaking and scattering
U
29© WHISTLER.
may not occasionally be selected as a motive. Art is so
large, that it may express not only unity and repose, but
restlessness and confusion. In many of Whistler's etchings
the eye has no peace, and cannot find a space of tranquil
light or quiet shade ; but after long familiarity with the art
that illustrates unity and repose, we find refreshment in this
very carelessness of unity, and even, if such a paradox may
be pardoned, a unity in their scattering and an aim in their
aimlessness.
Mr. Whistler has published a set of his plates since the
first edition of this work appeared.* Let me especially re-
commend the Hungerford Bridge (for exquisite delicacy of
* It is unfortunate, I think, that etchings like those of Mr. Whistler and Mr.
Haden should be published at such a very high price and in such a small edition.
Money was certainly not the object in either of these cases ; the real object in
charging twelve or sixteen guineas for a few etchings is to convey the impression to
the public mind that they are very precious things, and it is certain that if the
etchings were published at a moderate price there is a class of collectors who
would cease to value them ; such is human nature. But, on the other hand, it is a
misfortune for the celebrity of the etcher that so few copies of his works should be
in the possession of those who really care about the art for itself, and who do not
estimate the quality of a drawing by the sum of money which was paid for it A
hundred copies of a publication can do but little for the fame of its author, a
thousandjmight do something. In literature we find that it is possible to sell books
by thousands without acquiring thereby any inconvenient degree of celebrity, and
we also find that cheap editions do not degrade books, but the contnuy. A
reasonable way of publishing etchings is that adopted by Mr. SijthofT of Le3rden
for Unger*s works, the price being £,\ : 7s. for the set of ten, mounted on boards.
A still cheaper and quite practicable system is that of M. Cadart, who issues an
annual portfolio at ;f 2, containing forty etchings well printed on good Dutch
paper, but not mounted. Etchings cannot be decently issued independently for
less than this, but it is relatively a popular form answering to cheap editions in
literature. The Portfolio gives an etching every month for half-a-crown, besides
two other full-page illustrations and a quantity of text. I have an especial dislike
to the system of publishing very limited editions, and then destroying the plates to
create a small demand for the proofs as rarities. The greatest care should be taken
not to publish a single proof after the plate shows signs of wear, but until then
why not let everybody buy a copy who wants one ? I am particularly vexed with
M. de Gravesande for having destroyed some plates of his mentioned in this
volume when only a hundred copies had been printed. One feels that it is almost
useless to write about things which can be in the hands of so very few people.
WHISTLER. 291
curve) ; the little girl leaning against a door-post in France,
a woman inside the house cooking; a boy seated, and hold-
ing his foot (dry-point), hat on the floor, dress of black
velvet ; and the three subjects which follow.
Wapping" Wharf. — The reader may know this etching by
the following indications. There is a house with bow -windows
to the right, and three common windows above. Over these
is a sign with the words, " Thames Police ; " a second house
bears the inscription, " Wapping-Wharf." The shores of the
Thames in London used to be picturesque, and the new
embankment will remove much material that is interesting to
artists ; but the picturesque of the London river is after all
nothing but a more entertaining variety of the universal
London ugliness. The Thames is beautiful from Maidenhead
to Kew, but not from Battersea to Sheerness. If beauty
were the only province of art, neither painters nor etchers
would find anything to occupy them in the foul stream that
washes the London wharfs ; but even ugliness itself may be
valuable if only it has suflicient human interest and fortuitous
variety of lines. The long brick streets, whose regularity
charms the least artistic section of the public, are as ugly as
Wapping Wharf, but they are not so available for etching,
because they have nothing accidental and unforeseen. A
subject like this is not only picturesque, but very quaint and
curious, full of all sorts of odd bits of detail that come together
in a strange way that amuses and occupies the spectator.
It takes some time to analyse any of Whistler's more com-
plicated river subjects, and we have a pleasure in the occupa-
tion, which is much enhanced by the singular skill of the
designer. In this particular etching attention may be
directed to the delicacy of work on the principal roof, and to
the rapid but subtle sketching of the barges and wherry in
the foreground.
Black Lion Wharf. — I take this as a representative
292 WHISTLER.
example of Whistler's peculiar qualities and faults ; the
faults being, as so often happens in art, inseparable from the
qualities, and not so much to be condemned as simply stated,
to prevent them from having an influence which might become
widely and permanently injurious. It is one of the Thames
wharfs seen across the water ; in the foreground we have a
man sitting in a barge, his arm resting on the gunwale.
Near the shore is a schooner, a barge full of barrels, one or
two other boats, a landing-stage, a crane, several houses, and
two large warehouses, one with a long chimney. The roofs,
as usual, are studied with the utmost minuteness, and no
detail of window or balcony is missed. The schooner is very
finely indicated, but the foreground is slight in the extreme,
and is altogether out of relation to the rest of the subject.
The artist has exhausted all his darks in the details of the
shore : the blacks in a single bow-window beyond the
schooner have got down already to the very bottom of the
scale ; and as nothing in an etching can be made blacker
than pure printer's ink, the artist has no resource left for his
foreground, and so sketches it without attempting any
statement of its relation to that bow-window. But if we
concentrate our attention, as Whistler did, upon the buildings,
our study will be amply rewarded. Though the work is
very careful, it is by no means slavish, and differs from the
careful work of bad etchers more by keenness of observation
and vivacity of handling, than by any disdain for small facts.
If there is composition, it is so consummate as to be undis-
coverable ; but the very absence of it increases the appear-
ance of jumble which is so characteristic of the London
wharfs. Houses built without a plan, and figures who do
not trouble themselves about the rules of art, are the
materials that Whistler has sought : disorder and confusion
are the law of their visible existence, and not confusion of
the sort which in art is the most orderly arrangement ; and
as the absence of composition only helps the expression of
WHISTLER. 293
character, so the sins against tonality give a striking look of
truth. The whole attention of the spectator is concentrated
on the wharf; and if the houses there are considered without
reference to any nearer object, their tonality approaches
more closely to the strong oppositions of nature than any
delicate Tumerian interpretation.
Boats at a mooring — Evening. — Seven boats with masts
are fastened by ropes to a ring in a post on the right There
is a large barge to the left, with five men on it Behind
the boats is a bridge and a church tower ; on the shore, to
the left above the barge, there is a brick building with stone
facings, and a clock in a tower. The shore is crowded with
people, and there are figures ascending stairs.
Whistler's etchings are not generally remarkable for
poetical feeling, but there is a harmony in the thin lines of
these masts and in the festoons of the converging cables
that hold the boats, which approaches poetical synthesis.
The variety of inclination in the masts is very subtle and
beautiful ; a fan-like arrangement, artfully broken in the
middle by one contradictory vessel. There is some mys-
terious work in the bridge, and strong realism in the near
brick building to the left The fine strokes for cordage are
drawn with great certainty against the tender evening sky.
CHAPTER VI.
HADEN.
pRANCIS SEYMOUR HADEN is a London surgeon
in large practice, devoted to his profession, which he
pursues actively.
Francis Seymour Haden is an artist of rare endowment
and consummate practical skill.
These two statements may seem incompatible, but they
are both true. When a surgeon or other professional gentle-
man outside of art reads this, he will wonder how it can be
possible that a practical surgeon can be also a practical
artist ; he may even go a step farther, and decide in his own
mind that it is not possible. However, whether possible or
not, it is a fact. So, when an artist who has not seen
Haden's etchings, hears that he is a doctor and an amateur,
he may feel certain that the etchings cannot be worth much ;
but then the undeniable fact is that they are worth much, that
they are worth more than professional work generally, and
that it is difficult to find work of the same technical quality
amongst the productions of contemporary artists, either in
England or out of England.
This success of Mr. Haden as an artist — a success which
is not due to any temporary fashion, but will be as permanent
as any other modern reputation of equal present importance
— is the most interesting fact which can be adduced in
reference to the great question of amateurship, and it is
worth while to consider how far Mr. Haden's position
.resembles that of other amateurs generally, and what hope
of a like success they may reasonably entertain.
HADEN.
29s
It is true that etching has been Mr. Haden's recreation,
and not the business of his life ; but drawing, which is the
foundation of etching, was employed by him as an auxiliary
in the study of anatomy, and men of great energy often
carry a spirit of resolution into their amusements, and a
determination to do what they undertake as well as they
possibly can, even when they have no intention of earning
money by it. The kind of recreation which Mr. Haden has
sought in art was not pastime, but diversion — not a way of
passing time agreeably, so much as something to divert
great energies from their usual channel. He would never
have been an etcher at all, if he had always regularly
enjoyed the perfect health necessary to uninterrupted profes-
sional work ; but though his constitution is robust, there was
a time, some years ago, when its powers were so much over-
taxed that a very long rest was considered necessary, and
during this time of rest Mr. Haden produced the etchings
that we know. Since then his health has been re-established,
the practice of medicine resumed, and etching all but
abandoned. The production of an etching is too serious and
difficult a matter to be undertaken when the mind is pre- .
occupied by other interests ; and though it may require few
hours to etch a plate, these hours must be preceded by
other hours of uninterrupted tranquillity, and there must be
no anxiety about work to be done, or appointments to be
kept, just when the plate is finished. An active surgeon or
lawyer, however true might be his natural gift as an artist,
however consummate his acquired facility, could not, in
short intervals stolen from his profession, get himself suffi-
ciently into the artistic frame of mind for the production of
good work. The reader would therefore greatly mistake
the conditions under which Mr. Haden's etchings were
achieved, if he supposed that the artist executed his plates
during the intervals of consultations. Though a surgeon by
profession, he had been compelled against his will to abandon
296 HADEN,
medicine temporarily, and sought occupation in etching ;
living, for the time, the life of an artist, and purposely
detaching his mind as much as possible from professional
cares and thoughts. That Mr. Haden has by nature a very
powerful and original artistic faculty I have no doubt, but it
is not so certain that he is naturally more artist than surgeon,
or that we ought to regret the devotion of his life to a career
outside of art There are instances of men who are in profes-
sions which they dislike, and who seek in music or painting,
often also in the more attractive kinds of literary work, a relief
from the tedium of uncongenial duties. But the case of Mr.
Haden is so far from being one of these, that he is devotedly
attached to his profession, and quitted it for art only that
he might return to it later with re-invigorated energies. He
had long possessed a rich collection of etchings, and the
example of Whistler induced him to make a practical
attempt The result was so far satisfactory as to be an
encouragement to perseverance, and Mr. Haden found in
etching the patience to endure a temporary pause in the
career of his serious ambition. Whilst etching the plates
which have won for him artistic fame, Mr. Haden had no
idea of showing his work to the public ; he did it for his
own health and delight, and neither for our pleasure nor our
praise.
This last fact brings me to a consideration which is
favourable to the chances of amateurs. Artists who work
for money and reputation are obliged to consult the market,
to think whether their work is likely to suit the taste which,
for the time being, is prevalent ; and this often leads them
to much embarrassment and hesitation, and cramps their
true genius. They are like speakers on a platform : they
have to adapt themselves to an audience, and their success
seems to depend as much upon their knowledge of the
public as upon their knowledge of art In saying this, I am
not speaking vaguely, but have living instances before me ;
HADEN. 297
instances of men who, being compelled to go out of their
true path in order to earn their bread, become anxious
rather to please the public than to satisfy themselves, and
waste time and thought in the endeavour to adapt their
-work to the general demand. I know these things from the
inside, and have seen the effects of this anxiety, the loss of
force and directness to which it leads, the loss of originality,
the extinction of enthusiasm, the sacrifice of truth. But the
artist who neither works for income nor reputation need not
suffer from this distracting cause. He goes directly to his
aim, which is the perfect expression of his thought His art
is not a speech from a platform, but a sincere soliloquy in
the presence of nature and of God.
A case like Mr. Haden's is so exceptional that the reader
may have a difficulty in believing that he worked without
intending to publish. The idea of publication only suggested
itself when it had become evident that amongst the plates
already executed there was material for an interesting port-
folio. An intelligent French critic, M. Burty, saw their
value, and catalogued them, and the publication was accom-
panied by M. Burty's Catalogue. They were published in
Paris, and shortly afterwards in London, by Messrs. Colnaghi.
No issue of etchings ever had such rapid and complete
success. The reviews of them were very numerous ; all the
London papers noticed them, and every review was in a
strain of almost unmixed eulogy. The subscription list was
rapidly filled, though the price went beyond even English
custom, and in a few weeks one of the busiest surgeons in
London found himself one of its most celebrated artists.
A success of this kind is not likely to be repeated, but it
has done good service to the art by awakening an interest
in it ; and we who by warm praise made Mr. Haden's etch-
ings famous, will never have to repent our share in the work.
Whatever mistakes we have made, posterity will not say
that this is one of them.
298 HADEN.
How the skill came to him is still, after all explanations,
a mystery. No one ever before was able to do work of
equal quality after so little manual practice. The anatomical
drawing laid a foundation, and perhaps the manual precision
necessary in dissection, and still more in operations on the
living subject, may have developed a natural capacity to
apprehend form : but what is so curious is that the etchings
show no trace of a dominant sense of mere construction;
that the scientific element is entirely subordinated to the
artistic impression, and this to such a degree that there is
no obtrusive display of structural knowledge, even where it
was fully possessed, and the figures hold their places as true
landscape-figures, when any other anatomist would have
become pedantic about muscles and bones. The structure
of trees is always powerfully rendered, and, whether in
foliage, or branch, or stem, the draughtsmanship is equal to
that of any contemporary landscape-painter ; but even here
there is no pedantry of scieiice or system, and the trees are
drawn quite freely and innocently, as if the artist knew them
only by the intense gaze of a simple lover of nature. This
entire subordination of science to art, in a man scientifically
educated, is a proof of immense natural spring and elasticity
in the artistic faculty itself. A never-ending subject of
wonder to me in Haden's work is that it is not only art, but
pure art, — art reigning unopposed in its own realm ; and
that the scientific training of the workman has not power to
embarrass him, but is easily laid aside, as the old knights
laid aside their stiff plate-armour to take their ease in robes
of pliant silk.
This etcher has had much against him : the constant
application of energy to other objects, the direction of atten-
tion to studies of a different order ; but one thing in his
hard professional life has been favourable, — he has learned
what it is to observe and what it is to work. The miserable
failure of the mass of amateurs is due not so much to their
HADEN. 299
having other work, as to their having no work, to their
lamentable ignorance of the nature of work generally. When
men have not some great pursuit, they abandon culture when
they leave school, and (as a distinguished living poet said to
me in a letter) " content themselves with the current enlighten-
ment of the epoch." But Mr. Haden has had for his main
pursuit one of the noblest and most stimulating of all studies,
so that he has never lost the habit of acquisition.
Of his place and rank among etchers it may be necessary
now to speak. He is frankly a pupil of Rembrandt, but so
thoroughly modem that tradition never stands between him
and nature. Haden has nothing whatever in common with
the English school of etching, and is only mentioned in this
place because he happens to be an Englishman, not as a
member of the school. His manner is so entirely in har-
mony with the nature of the art, that no man's work, except
Rembrandt's, is a safer example in this respect There is
never, in an etching by Haden, that uncomfortable fatigue
which wearies us so frequently in modem work ; he never
even wishes to transgress the limits of the art, but works
happily within them, as a sea-captain commands his own
ship. Consequently, he never imitates engraving, or betfays
a hankering after other methods, or wants etching to do
more than it naturally can do. As every quality has its
corresponding fault, it may be added, however, that Mr.
Haden is so rapid and decided in manner, that he misses,
by his very decision, the charm of a certain rare and precious
and exquisite {;/decision which one or two first-rate men
have had, and which is the last result of art His temper is
rather active and rapidly intuitive, than quietly contempla-
tive ; and though his etchings prove that he is capable of
reverie and rest, he is so only at rare moments, his general
habit being emphatic and decisive. Of his imaginative
power, there is only evidence of this kind, that he turns what
he sees into something interesting and good ; but what he
300 HADEN.
could do without nature or sketches, I am unable to say.
It is certain that he is not a literalist, not a prosaic work-
man ; and though the imaginative faculty in this case may
not be strong enough to be relied upon without reference to
nature, it is certainly strong enough to transform and inter-
pret nature.
Of the kind of material made use of by this artist, it
may be observed, first, that he is a master of foliage, that
he has drawn some trees magnificently, both as to wood and
leaves ; there is no better stem or branch drawing than his
in all contemporary art He draws boats and buildings
well, and water in the common varieties of calm and ripple,
but he does not seem to have attempted the sea-waves. He
draws land with great truth, especially pieces of river-bank,
but apparently does not possess any especial knowledge of
mountain structure or mountain effects. So his cloud studies
are confined to what may be seen in the lowlands. An
etcher having Haden's technical power, and perfect leisure
for some years, might do great and new things in mountainous
countries, if he had the right passion for their sublimities.
These victories are reserved for the future ; mountains have
been painted, but never etched.*
Out of Study window. — The sky here may be a useful
example to etchers, as much for the prudence of the artist
as his courage. He has done those things which he ought
to have done, and he has also left undone those things which
he ought not to have done. This negative side of duty is,
for clever and accomplished artists, perhaps the more difficult
of the two. With the single exception of Whistler, there is
not another etcher in England who would not have killed
this sky in trying to finish it.f These masses of heavy
* Except scientifically by Mr. Ruskin, as we have seen, and slightly by Turner
as a preparation for mezzotint.
t This was true when written, but I think that Mr. Chattock would now etch
such a sky rightly if it came in his way.
HAD EN. 301
cumulus might have tempted an ordinary etcher into a
painful struggle after imitative modelling, which would have
certainly ended in the loss of motion and energy. It would
be possible, no doubt, to do work even in etching more
imitative than this bold interpretation, but any truth which
long labour might have attained would have been dearly
purchased by the slighest diminution in the unity and
vivacity of impression. A natural sky, even of the most
slowly-moving clouds, is always so transient that copyism is
out of the question, and the more rapid the memorandum
the better does it harmonise with the fleeting nature of the
thing. What an etcher most needs to record is, first, the
composition, and then so much of the relations of tone as
may be necessary to suggest, but not imitate, the natural
light and shade. Whilst doing so much as this^ the artist
should miss no opportunity of noting and accentuating the
lines of energy and motion.
Sunset on the Thames. — The indications of cloud-form
here are much slighter than the strong sketching in the
preceding study, but the effect of light is given with such
magnificent force that the whole sky flames. As a proof
of the artist's subtle observation, may be mentioned the
horizontal elongation of the sun's disk behind the cloud
which^ as it were, seems to draw it out into an oval, a
common optical illusion. The broad bright river flows
swiftly past the sun, bearing the laden barges. Etching of
this kind is purely interpretative : etching may be imitative
sometimes ; it is marvellously imitative in the work of Jules
Jacquemart, but Haden works always on the far higher
principle of interpretation, and has never done so more
conspicuously than in this instance. The wild scrawling in
the upper sky, the thick black strokes which to the right do
duty as solar rays, the faint scratches of dry-point which
cross the field of intensest light, the two broad bands to the
left which radiate like the sails of a windmill, and are in
302 HADEN.
fact shadows in the misty air — ^all these things, and the
undulating lines which mark the flow of the rippling river,
are expressional expedients, which no simple imitator could
ever discover or apply. He might scrawl as wildly and
scratch as faintly, but it would not be the right scrawling
and scratching, and he might leave great spaces of white
paper like that in the upper sky, but he could not flood it
with this ethereal fire.
Whist Uf^s House at Old Chelsea. — It would have been
interesting to future students of etching, if Mr. Haden had
informed us which of these houses is inhabited by the great
etcher of the Thames. He has been kind enough to let us
know where Mr. Greaves, the boat-builder, carries on his
very useful occupation, but the Thames has had many
boat-builders and only one Whistler. There is magnifi-
cent power of drawing in this etching, and brilliant arrange-
ment of lights and darks. The foreshortening of the
bows of the baizes, as seen from the stems, is as good a
piece of work as one might hope to find in the Royal
Academy, and there is not a marine painter living who
would have drawn these barges better. Their immense
force as darks gfives great delicacy to the bridge, and the
light foliage beyond it ; and their cumbrous weight as a
united mass adds greatly to the thread-like tenuity of the
rigging in the distance. Of the figures in the foreg^und,
it is fair to say that they are neither better nor worse than
Turner's. We have a woman in a state of much distress
because three little dogs are running afler her, and she
displays her legs in a manner so pathetic as to excite the
sympathy of everybody but those two watermen with the
poles, one of whom seems rather amused at the incident.
Both woman and watermen are in a high degree Tumerian ;
that is, they are true landscape-painter's figures, not to be
judged in themselves,* but with reference to the houses and
boats they accompany. Rude as they are, they give life
HADEN. 303
to the scene, and their execution is in harmony with that
of the inanimate objects about them.
The Towing-path. — A sketch in dry-point, with a rather
high horizon and somewhat empty foreground, on which
a lady is walking with a Skye- terrier. It is a river
scene, where the stream is divided by an island. This island
and both shores are enriched with foliage which is reflected
in the glassy water. There is some undulation towards
the foreground, but it is smooth and bright, and reflects the
sky.
When persons, not much accustomed to etching, come
across a dry-point, they are always very much taken by its
softness ; but if the tones of dry-point are richer, its lines
are poorer than the etched line. In pure etching, Mr. Haden
would have drawn better poplars than these, and the other
trees would have had more variety and richer detail The
best work here is not in the trees, nor in the sky, but the
water. The reflection of the central mass on the island is
as soft and limpid as we may desire. When water is not so
absolutely still as to become a mirror, but yet sufficiently
smooth to reflect softly, it can be rendered as well with the
dry-point as any other instrument, for the lines needed are
all either straight lines, vertical, or horizontal, or else the
gentlest curves. The rich quality of dry-point work gives
the softness of such reflections perfectly.
A Sunset in Tipperary. — If the reader cares to compare
the powers of etching and dry-point, he may place this dry-
point side by side with the etching of part of the same
subject which appeared in the Fine Arts Quarterly Review.^
The difference is altogether in favour of dry-point if richness
of tone is the quality sought, and just as favourable to etching
if we value variety of line. Much will depend on the parti-
cular impression to which the reader may have access. Thd
one before me is so clogged with ink that the signature is a
♦ See Fine Arts Quarterly Review^ No. 3, New Series, January 1867, p. 119.
304 HADEN.
blot, and the nearer trees a mass of undistinguishable dark.
But I remember other impressions printed less heavily, in
which all the richness of the subject was preserved without
this excessive confusion. To judge a dry-point fairly, we
must be past the stage in which its softness strikes and
captivates us, for this softness is merely a necessary property
in the process, and does not of itself imply merit in the
executant The scene here is one of those charming
glimpses of river, where the stream reflects the sky before it
hides itself again under the dark woods. It is evening, and
the time seems later than sunset ; the copy before me might
pass for late twilight, so lost are the details in the inky
depths of shade. Landscape art is often dear to us from its
connection with healthy pleasures and agreeable reminiscences.
Let us suppose, that we may the better enjoy this plate, that
we have descended the river so far in a canoe, and are pausing
here whilst the sun sets beyond the dark forest It must, of
course, be a river wholly unknown to us, and we ought to
feel a little anxiety and apprehension about our twilight
course through those solemn woods.
Shere Mill-pond^ Surrey, — The preparation for this
volume has compelled me to examine all the most notable
etchings which have been produced since the invention of the
art. In the course of these studies, I have looked over
several thousand plates, and, having selected two or three
hundred of the best, weighed their relative merits with the
most scrupulous care. The reader will, therefore, do me the
justice to believe that any expression of opinion to which I
commit myself has been preceded by long deliberation. It
is easy to blame ; and censure has always this element of
safety, that there is imperfection or at least limitation, in all
human endeavour, and that he who discovers faults places
himself on a judicial seat, whilst humble admiration implies
some acknowledgment of inferiority. A great critic of litera-
ture observed to me, that it needed courage to praise without
HADEN, 305
reserve ; and there is so little reserve in what I am going to
say, that I need this courage now.
With the single exception of one plate, by Claude, this
is the finest etching of a landscape subject that has ever been
executed in the world.
The plate by Claude, alluded to above, is the one known
as " the Bouvier." We shall have more to say of Claude's
masterpiece in its due place. Such superiorities as it may
have over this plate of Haden's are compensated by other
and different superiorities in the English master, and the two
etchings may fairly divide our suffrages. In all fine art,
strength and delicacy are the extremes of expressional power,
and the stronger the strength and the more delicate the
delicacy, the larger in this sense is the compass of the artist
In this plate we have both, and both in the supreme degree.
The strength is not expressed by violence, but by the
unimaginable richness of the great soft masses of near foliage,
and the rapid sketching of the nearest reeds. The wild duck
is put in with a few incisive lines of dry-point, so true in
movement that the bird is set before us with a vital force.
The heavy body hangs from the lifting wings, and the head
peers forward in the alarm of sudden flight. Under the
reeds the water is dark with full reflection, but where the
wild duck has just quitted it, there is a bright confusion of
momentary disturbance. The smooth little wavelets play
softly amongst the reeds, and their liquid swelling and the
flight of the bird that caused them are the only notes that
break a melody of repose. And as to the right hand we
have foliage in the utmost fulness of great masses, so in the
centre and to the left of the composition we have it in its
slenderest grace. There is no contrast in human or animal
form so marked and extreme as this. From the wild duck
to the heron, from the ox to the giraffe, the transition is not
so great as that from the orbed immensity of the fuU-foliaged
chestnut to the slimness of the young poplar, whose leaves
x
3o6 HADEN.
may be almost counted, and whose trunk may be grasped
with the hand. But all these things are obvious, and may be
easily expressed in words ; that which is not so obvious nor
so easily written about, is the subtle play of soft gjradations
like the modulations of tenderest music ; the passage from
all that is richest and fullest to all that is thinnest and
clearest, a transition managed without abruptness, without
violence; yet passing from extreme to extreme.
House of Benjamin Davis, Smith {Newcastle-in-Emfyn,
South Wales). — This may be taken as fairly representative
of Mr. Haden's sketches on copper. A sketch of this kind
may be easily done in three hours, if the artist is clever
enough to do it at all, and it may be done as conveniently
in the acid bath as out of it Mr. Haden has a way of
leaving large white spaces in his foreground, so that sometimes
his compositions do not seem solidly based ; but the advan-
tage of a white space is undeniable when there is a fair
excuse for leaving one ; it affords repose to the eye, and
gives by contrast a value to the blacks, and consequently a
brilliance to the whole work, which are not otherwise so
easily attainable. These plates at one sitting have an
advantage on the score of freshness, but they can scarcely
be either rich in detail or complete in tonality, and when
good they are rather of the nature of artistic memoranda,
than works of deliberate purpose. In this case, although
the vehicles cast shadows, and the house is in full light, there
is a curious absence of illumination on the foliage, and the
plate has a confused look which is not altogether satisfactory.
Early Morning in Richmond Park, — There is a faint little
inscription in dry-point to the left of the plate, from one of
the songs of Shakspeare, " The lark at heaven's gate sings,"
and in the space of perfectly white paper, which is here
made to represent the bright early sky, the bird is faintly
visible. This poetical quotation may have been added when
the plate was retouched, for there is abundant dry-point work.
HADEN. 307
and a roughening of the copper on the foliage, which indicate
labours subsequent to those with the needle. But whether the
quotation occurred to the artist in the presence of nature, or
not, the conception of the plate itself has a poetry of its own,
and it is filled with the freshness of morning. The contrast of
light and dark on the trunks of the great trees is somewhat
violent and excessive, and would not stand the test, the one
true test of tonality, of translation into colour. If a painter
took this etching and tried to make a picture from it, he
could not preserve this violence of contrast, for he could not
paint his tree with pure flake white on the side where the
sun strikes it, and pure ivory black on the other. There is
a sooty heaviness in these shades which really injures the
effect whilst apparently adding to its force ; but the trunks
are drawn with perfect knowledge of their structure, and a
masterly indication of bark. There is a little tree on the
lower land, the summit of whose foliage is caught by the
sunshine, And as it were, burnt by it in a glitter of silvery
flame as light as the white sky itself. This is an exaggeration,
but a permissible one, for it helps the expression of
splendour. There is an unaccountable salissure to the left
under the sun, which, whatever it may have been intended to
mean, expresses no object or appearance of objects visible in
distant landscape ; but though the plate has obvious defects,
it has the one great merit, which in etching makes almost
any defect pardonable, the unity of a genuine impression.
Battersea Reach, — The same feeling which suggested the
introduction of the lark in the preceding subject has sug-
gested the balloon in this ; it helps to give the sense of space
and air, and reminds us that the white paper there is not to
be paper for us, but atmosphere. Mr. Haden's love for large
white spaces was never more strikingly manifested than in
the last or published state of this etching. In the earlier
state the river was crowded with boats, but now these have
been removed wherever it reflects the sky, and a vast bright
3o8 HADEK
surface is left unbroken, a surface so bright that it is out of
relation to the actual whiteness of the sky, which we must
fancy a little brighter still. The massive sketching of the
buildings on the opposite shore adds, by its extreme solidity,
to the curious appearance of suspension between two voids.
This crowded shore, with its houses and prisons of stone,
seems to hang like a planet in the pure ether, or the Island
of Laputa in the air. This idea is the artistic motive of the
work, and the strange charm of the etching may be due to a
vague sense of the unexpressed analogy between these sub-
stantial buildings of Battersea suspended between two infini-
ties, and resting apparently upon nothing, and the stem prose
of the life of man between the two eternities.
The Agamemnofi* — ^The plate measures i6 in. by J^ in.
It is drawn upon to the edges. There is no margin on the
copper. Thus the plate-mark coincides with the edges of the
drawing, and there are no ruled lines. I think that it is wise
to arrange etchings in this way generally, becaus6 the ruled
lines are in too strong contrast with the liberty of the etched
ones, and the simple plate-mark is less formal. At the same
* This etching is not included in the portfolio which contains the plates
hitherto enumerated. It was published separately and more recently. No
etching ever published has been so successful, indeed the profits which it realised
immediately were so great as to equal the price of a firstrate picture in the
Academy, whilst if the time spent is considcretl, there have not been more than
three or four painters who have ever earned so much in so few hours. Far indeed,
however, from ideas of money-getting was the mind of the artist when he set about
his task. He had abandoned etching on account of professional duties, and it was
I who induced him to resume the point. 1 had just founded the Port/olio^ and
begged Mr. I laden to etch a plate for the young periodical on our usual terms,
suggesting that the money might be handed over to some charity. lie accepted,
and was glad to earn something in this way for the hospital he has founded. With
this yiavf he went to etch the Agatfumnon^ taking the copper with him and work-
ing directly from nature, but the copper was too big for the Portfolio, so it was
decided he should do something else for us and publish the Agafnentfton plate
separately. This was very fortunate, as it turned out, for it is quite possible that if
the plate had appeared in a periodical it might have attracted less attention,
whereas, having strength to stand alone, its importance was fully recognised.
PLATE XI.
Part of the plate known as
**THE AGAMEMNON/'
By F. SEYMOUR HADEN.
Copied by the AuUior.
PLATE XI.
(To be placed oi)po3itc page 30S.)
Part of the plate known as "The .AGAMEMNON."
By F. Seymour Hadcn.
Copied by the Author,
This includes a very small portion of ^^^. Haden's large plate, and docs not
give any of his deepcal foreground biiings. The importance of the cloud markings
in the sky can scarcely be understood without reference to the entire >ky in the ori-
ginal. The sun, in tliis fragment, ncces>arily appears exaggerateil in size, and the
buildings in the distance look more carelessly drawn than tliey do in the original,
because of their greater relative importance in tliis small fragment
BITINGS.
In Dutch Mordant, heated to 90^ Falircnheit
The palest Unes about sun, sky, distance, and water .
Darker lines in distance ......
Domes and buildings of Greenwich .....
Dreadnought (hulk to left) and sail of barge and distant \'essel, also
some ripple in water, and some of tlie lighter touches on
Agamemnon .......
The Agamemnon (prow to the right) ....
Portion of barge in right-hand corner and kaegromid ripple
First proof taken.
Plate prepared for rebiiing.
The portions rebitten were the domes an«l ImildinQS of Greenwich (ex-
cept tliu.se behifid the barge wiih the dark aprit-.^iil) also the Dreadnouglit
and sail of the barge, and tlie anchor of the Agamemnon. They were
rebitten for eight minutes.
Second proof takeiu
Faint lines now added with the dry-point, or else obtained by reducing
with the scraper and burnisher .some of those which had bitten seven minutes.
The Dreadnought is slia<led with the burin over the etched lines. The
lower part of the Agamemnon, near the water, is bliaded with dr}*-point
So is the buuy. Some lines in tlie Agamemnon are deepened with the
burin, others are reduced with the scraper.
This pl.ate is printed a.? follows : — The whole is first wiped with the can-
vas only (not the hand.) and then the stern of the Dreadnought, the ripi)Ie
and portit;'!! of barge in the immediate foreground, and part of tlie Aga-
memnon, are rcinusjcs.
I
HADEN, 309
time the slight depression of the etched surface is good and
assists the effect, making the margin like the frame to a
picture, and when ribbed or rough paper is employed the
etched surface alone is made smooth by pressure, whereas
when there is a copper margin the paper is smooth also
between the etching and the plate-mark. In the latter case
the formality of ruled lines is now frequently avoided by
letting the etched work of the drawing come up to an imag-
inary line rather irregularly.
The sentiment of this etching is very like that of Turner's
well-known picture, the Tdmiraire. In the picture an old
* war-ship of the heroic time is being towed to her last berth,
there to be broken up like a rotten cask ; in the etching
another such old war-ship has actually arrived at her last
berth, and the destroyers are already at work upon her. If
there is any sight in the world which can touch the heart of
an Englishman, it is this. Until now the ship has been alive
still, though superseded by later models, but now an official
decision has pronounced her to be dead, and sentenced her
to dissolution. She floats yet, and there are men in her, but
they are doing exactly the same work as the worms in a
dead war-horse. They have destroyed a good deal already.
Every mast and every spar is gone except the mizzen and
the flag-staff at the stern, and even that mizzen is bared of
its shrouds. From figure-head to taffrail the bulwarks are
cleared away, and the timbers stand up like a shattered
battlement, showing the sky between them. As the planking
is gradually torn off it will bare the ribs from deck to deck
down to the water's edge. But this is not to be done to-day,
so we may look at those long rows of port-holes till the sun
is down. No more battle-thunder will ever come out of them,
they are nothing now but so many windows without glass,
and provided with uncommonly thick shutters, some closed,
some partially lifted up. Now let us use our imaginations a
little and see the old ship as she was in the day of battle
3IO HAD EN.
with all her sails set, gliding swiftly and steadily towards the
enemy's line, silent as a chatted thunder-cloud before the
lightning flashes. Not until she gets very near will she break
that ominous silence. Then suddenly half her port-holes
open together, half her guns thrust out their deadly muzzles,
a tongue of red flame leaps out from each, followed by a long
puff of smoke, and then comes such a roar ! Crash go the
flying balls into the enemy ! — Well, we have all read such
descriptions, and we all remember how.
With thunders from her'native oak
She quells the floods below, —
As they roar on the shore,
When the stormy winds do blow ;
When the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.
Perhaps these very lines may have been ringing in the
etcher's memory when he sat down to his task, certainly the
sentiments and recollections I have just expressed were his.
The Agamemnon was not to him merely a floating wooden
thing of rather a picturesque shape, nor was that figure-
head, with its British-Greek helmet and crest, merely a
reference to the war in Troy, for the wooden Agamemnon
had been in sublimer battle than any Grecian leader.
With such a subject as this for a motive, an etcher will
do manly work if the strength to do it is in him. And this
is manly work. I know very well the sort of criticism
which would be applied to this etching by a critic who had
recently acquired some knowledge of light and shade, and
felt proud of his acquirement. He would say, " With the
sun in that position many parts which are left white in the
etching would be strongly shaded, for example the figure-
head, fish-davit, and dead-wood about it ought not to have
been left white against that luminous sky, for they would
have come dark against it The barge in the foreground in
the left-hand corner ought to have had its side very darkly
HA DEN. 311
shaded indeed^ and so ought the square timbers to the right
It would even be impossible, with the sun in that position,
that there should be any white spaces on the side of the
Agamemnon whatever. On the other hand the side of the
other old hull in the distance ought to have been lighter, for
it really would in some degree catch the sunshine. The
buildings at Greenwich are not lighted as if the sun were
behind them, but as if it were on the opposite side of the
river. The only bit of true tone is the sprit-sail of the barge
near the bows of the Agamemnon, but there are so many
things to contradict it (for instance, the buoys at her stem)
that this bit of truth (and even the sprit-sail is too dark to
be quite true) only makes the general falsity more glaring.
As for the sky, the sun is exactly of the same tone as the
sky, and the sails behind the Agamemnon, and the water
wherever there is no ripple.
This is the kind of criticism which is often applied to
line-etchings, but I pay the supposed critic the very rarely
deserved compliment of presuming that he really does know
something about tone, and can put his finger at once on the
tonic solecisms. The answer to all such fault-finding is
simply that a genuine artist, when he has achieved his
purpose, sets it at defiance. Art is not the slave of nature,
but an independent force using nature as a mine of materials.
An artist may fairly be blamed for ignorance of tone, he is
hardly ever blameable for wilful and open transgression in
view of some greater purpose. Now the tonic relations of this
plate are utterly false and indefensible. I admit it ; but then
I afHrm at the same time that such a pretence to full light-
and-shade as would have quite contented a vulgar critic
would in all probability have been still worthless in itself
and purchased at the cost of everything which makes this
plate the strong performance that it is. The purpose of the
artist was not expression by shade, but expression by line,
and I think he has made his meaning plain. He pre-
312 HA DEN.
supposes, of course, a certain willing activity of sympathetic
imagination in the spectator, and also some intelligence
Art of this kind certainly does not address itself to the
stupid portion of mankind, who would do well to keep out
of its way. It is taken for granted that when we have
seen that thin circular line so simply drawn above Green-
wich, we shall have memory and imagination enough of our
own to see the orb of fire, that the black marks in the sky
will be clouds for us, and those on the water ripples. Just
on the same principle it is presumed that those parts which
the etcher has thought it better not to shade will be shaded
more delicately and more truly by our own awakened
imagination. The most that can fairly be asked from work
of this kind is that the lines in it should be first well selected
and then soundly drawn. In this etching tliey are so.
I must ask the reader to give his attention in this place
whilst I endeavour to make clear a certain property of lines
which has never been critically considered. Let it be
supposed that you are working, or intending to work, in
pure line, that is to say, that you are using the line for
outlines or suggestions of outline, and for organic markings,
shading in the meantime as little as possible. You are not
intending to shade, and yet your markings, in proportion to
their quantity, will always inevitably be so much shading in
the general effect. For example, the figure-head, fish-davit,
etc., in the Agamemnofi are not shaded at all, but only drawn
organically, and yet as a certain amount of black is laid on
the paper in so drawing them, the consequence is that the
eye strikes an average between this black and the white
spaces, so that the white spaces do not seem false until we
consider them independently. And so it is with the whole
side of the vessel. You may find many small spaces in it
which are certainly false, taken alone, but the effect of the
whole seen together at a little distance is very nearly right
This principle may appear new to some readers, and yet all
HADEN. 313
line-engraving depends upon it, for even the grey tint in the
most delicate shading with the diamond does in reality
represent an average that the eye strikes between spaces
which are perfectly black and spaces which are perfectly
white. Hence, when an artist has done much for texture in
line, it is probable that he may have been shading at the
same time, almost without being aware of it. The type of
this volume is a kind of shading on the page, though quite
unintentional, and at a little distance it will make the page
look, not white and black, but grey. Now if the reader
returns to the Agamemnon with the conviction that every
black line in an etching is sure to tell as shade, he will
perceive that, merely by marking things or not marking
them, the artist has often suggested shade or left it unsug-
gested. For example, the sky is left very open about the
sun, but it is much more marked with cloud-lines as the
distance from the sun increases. You suspect no shading
here, and there is really none of an avowed kind, but all
these cloud-markings produce in the aggregate an effect of
shade, and do, in fact, give a gradation. So it is with the
markings for little waves upon the water ; they too give
graduated shade, though apparently intended to indicate only
form. Again, it is perfectly true that the barge in the
left-hand corner has nothing of what we call shading on its
side, where it ought to be very black if the exact truth were
given, but now see the subtle operation of the law just
indicated. That barge has very powerfully bitten markings
which make a dark mass of it as a whole, and the white
spaces, though broad, are so influenced by the near neighbour-
hood of the black markings that the mind is not -shocked by
their fal3ity until it is pointed out, and even then speedily
forgives it. Replace those deeply-bitten thick markings by
pale ones, and the solecism would be at once intolerable.
The plain truth is that there is hardly any intentional shad-
ing whatever in this plate ; it is nearly all of it line-drawing of
314 HADEN.
definite things, and yet the drawing is so managed and so dis-
tributed as to suggest shading besides. The whole secret may
be condensed into a precept Keep open spaces in light parts,
let your lines be few there and also thin^ but in darker parts
you may put more and stronger markings* I may observe
that even such things as the lines of cordage here have a
very important effect in the general distribution of light and
dark, though they do not look as if put there for that purpose.
There is a great deal of texture in this etching, especially
in the Agamemnon — some would say too much — ^but it pleases
me because it is explanatory of substance and structure, the
direction of the lines always answering to that of the plank-
ing. What I value more, however, than any texture is the
cunning selection of the most expressive lines in the flowing
water, as it eddies and washes past barge, and buoy, and
vessel There is much firm good drawing too about the
cordage and the crane. Stretched ropes look easier to draw
than they really are, and they are seldom well done in etching.
There is always a slight curve in them, except in the shrouds
of a ship, which are screwed up like fiddle-strings, and even
here there is a curve sometimes. An etcher generally does
one of two things, either he rules the line and takes all the
life out of it by so doing, or else his hand is uncertain, as
Zeeman's was, and gives the curve weakly and tremulously.
It is rare to find the curve of a rope drawn at once truly and
decisively.
I remember that a critic, though without mentioning Mr.
Haden by name, wrote something about '' attitudinising with
the free and frank line," in evident reference to my praise of
him. Now Mr. Haden certainly does not " attitudinise " with
the line, but uses it with the most unaffected simplicity of
* This is different from M. Lalanne*s precept, and also from the usual practice
of engravers, who put many lines in light parts to get the effect of a grey tint. The
engravers also use many dark lines for shading, even when they are intended to
signify nothing else.
HAD EN. 315
purpose. The same critic said that Rembrandt's business
was not to show how he could do it, but what there is to be
done, implying that in the modern school of the line there is
an especial ostentation of cleverness in method. I should
be sorry if my praise of certain ways of interpretation led
any reader to the mistaken conclusion that the etcher who
uses them is a sort of performer, anxious to display his skill
in difficult manual tricks. A genuine artist always does
wish to do things in the best way, but this is not from vanity,
it is from the desire to do good work, which is a very honour-
able desire, the sign of a good workman. It is possible that,
as a critic, I may think more about the " how " than artists
themselves do. I do indeed attach very great importance,
to the "how," so much that a thorough knowledge of it
seems to me quite essential to sound criticism. There is a
sentence of Goethe which expresses what must be the feeling
of every critical student " Generally," he says of Scott, " he
shows great knowledge of art ; for which reason those like us
who always look to see how things are done, find especial
pleasure and profit in his works."
CHAPTER VII.
CR UIKSHANK AND DO YLE.
■pEW more interesting subjects could occupy a writer on
art than the various and truly original genius of
Cruikshank^ but I cannot speak of him here with the fulness
which his inventive faculty deserves, because the art of
etching is, in his plates, so often subordinated to the purposes
of the caricaturist, that artistic quality is hardly ever their
principal aim, and it would be foreign to the design of a
work of this kind to enter largely into the discussion of
merits which, however deserving of honourable recognition,
are often moral and intellectual rather than artistic Art,
with a great social or political purpose, is seldom pure fine
art ; artistic aims are usually lost sight of in the anxiety to
hit the social or political mark, and though the caricaturist
may have great natural faculty for art, it has not a fair
chance of cultivation. It would be a mistake, in a volume
intended to strengthen the position of etching as a fine art,
to direct attention to works whose interest is wholly different,
for to criticise them would be an injustice to the caricaturist,
and to speak much of their peculiar powers, a digression.
The reader may remember the exhibition of Cruikshank's
works, which took place a few years ago, at Exeter Hall.
There was a large oil-painting in the room, representing the
bad effects of drinking too much alcohol. Its social purpose
was no doubt excellent, but it lay outside of artistic criticism,
because there was no attempt at any one artistic excellence ;
no arrangement of form, no light and shade, no synthesis of
CR UIKSHANK AND DO YLE, 3 1 7
colour. And so it is with very many of Cruikshank's etch-
ings ; they are full of keen satire and happy invention, and
their moral purpose is always good, but all these qualities
are compatible with a carelessness of art which is not to be
tolerated in any one but a professed caricaturist
There is, however, in Cruikshank, an artist within or
behind the caricaturist, and this artist is a personage of
exceptional endowment. His invention is vivid, and his
power of drawing the figures invented is singularly sprightly
and precise. There are etchings by Cruikshank, though
these are not numerous in proportion to the mass of his great
labours, which are as excellent artistically as they are notable
for genius and wit, where the stroke of the needle is as happy
as the thought, and where the student of etching may find
models, as the student of manners finds a record or a sugges-
tion. In etchings of this high class, Cruikshank carries one
great virtue of the art to perfection — its simple frankness.
He is so direct and unaflfected, that only those who know
the difHculties of etching can appreciate the power that lies
behind his unpretending skill ; there is never, in his most
admirable plates, the trace of a vain effort.
I never regretted the hard necessity which forbids an art
critic to shut his eyes to artistic shortcomings more heartily
than I do now in speaking of Richard Doyle. Considered
as commentaries on human character, his etchings are so full
of wit and intelligence, so bright with playful satire and
manly relish of life, that I scarcely know how to write sen-
tences with a touch at once light enough and keen enough
to describe them. But they are of no value as works of art ;
Doyle never selects a line as the great men do, and he does
not seem to take the least interest in local colour or chiaros-
curo. Though shading is employed to give projection to
the personages, Doyle's etchings are in reality conceived
only in outline, and his interpretation of nature is, when
considered from the artistic point of view, so artless as to be
3 1 8 CR UIKSHANK AND DO YLE.
almost puerile. When he feebly attempts any effect of light,
he is always lost, and knows it ; in these cases he will frankly
abandon the effect in the same etching, when it becomes
inconveniently difficult His sense of the nature of material
is quite undeveloped, and he never draws any object as if he
had looked at it This absence of imitative study is not, in
Doyle, due to any noble abstraction, but is mere defect of
training or carelessness of art It is probable that this art-
lessness is an essential element in the complex influences of
his caricatures ; the artistic statement is so thoroughly naif,
that we enjoy the satire the more, just as we laugh more
heartily at a child's portrait of his papa than at the serious
efforts of the scientific portrait-painter. But a critic who is
anxious to obtain for etching the sort of consideration which
is due to it cannot allow his readers to retain the impression
that such work as this of Doyle is what he understands by
** etching," and recommends as art, and it is a positive mis-
fortune that the popular idea of what etching is capable of
should be so often derived from work of this kind, the
circulation of which, from its connection with successful
novels, is usually much more extensive than that of artistic
masterpieces. Fifty contemporary Englishmen know Doyle's
illustrations of "The Newcomes" for one who remembers
Wilkie's *' Pope examining a Censer ; " and when etching is
mentioned in general society, the associations which the
word calls up in the minds of the majority have less connec-
tion with the treasures of the British Museum than with the
pleasant companions of our domestic leisure.
The allusion to " The Newcomes " makes it impossible
for me to conclude these observations without acknowledg-
ment of . the all but inestimable dramatic value of the
illustrations which accompanied it Illustrations to imagina-
tive literature are too frequently an intrusion and an imperti-
nence, but these really added to our enjoyment of a great
literary masterpiece, and Doyle's conception of the Colonel,
CR UIKSHANK AND DO YLE. 319
of Honeyman, of Lady Kew^ is accepted at once as authentic
portraiture. In Ethel he was less happy, which was a
misfortune, as she was the heroine of the book ; but many
of the minor characters were successes of the most striking
and indisputable kind. Gandish and the other artists, the
military gentlemen, the dubious Englishmen and foreigners,
are all set before us with a veracity that is not the less
profound that it is illuminated in all its depths by the light
of a genial humour.
Cruikshank. The Folly of Crime.— Th^ plate is oblong
and upright, the centre of it is occupied by an oval, which is
enclosed by a prisoner's chain. Outside of this oval frame
are ten minor subjects. The central composition represents
the edge of an abyss with a precipice. Smoke and flame
rise from the abyss, and near the edge of the precipice lies
the corpse of a murdered man. A demon is plunging into
the flame ; this demon holds a vessel on his head with both
hands ; the vessel contains jewels and money and bank-
notes. A powerfully-built man, having the aspect of a
felon, has quitted the corpse to clutch the treasure ; he has
planted his foot on a stone which has given way, and falls
from the precipice. The jewels rise as if they were serpents
to bite his hand ; the bank-notes fly away in the flame and
are burnt. Twelve demons, having glaring ty^s and grinning
teeth, congregate in the dark sky over the man's head. Some
of them point at him derisively, and he wears a fooFs cap.
The minor subjects are as follows : — (i) A man in bed with
a heavy weight on his breast ; two hands issue from a cloud,
one bearing a pair of scales, the other a flaming sword.
Many serpents come from under the pillow and play about
his head. (2) Two men on a treadmill. (3) A prisoner in
the corner of his den is visited by his gaoler, who is bringing
him water to drink. (4-5) Two prisoners in chains. (6)
Criminal in a fool's cap lying in a heap of dung, and dying,
3 2 o CR UIKSHANK AND DO YLE.
or very ill, in the last extremity of poverty ; on the wall
behind him is a placard offering fifty pounds reward. (7) A
man in a fool's cap, starting at his own shadow ; there is an
advertisement on the wall offering a hundred pounds reward.
(8) A man running away with bags containing a hundred
pounds each, and putting his foot in a trap. (9) Man bearing
a log of wood, on which is inscribed, " for fourteen years ; "
there is a ship in the distance. (10) Man dragging a log
after him chained to his foot, and bearing upon his shoulders a
coffin, on which is inscribed, " for life ; " before him is his grave
with his spade sticking up in it. The sea and a ship show
that he is a convict in a penal colony.
This elaborate plate is as good an example as could be
chosen of Cruikshank's moral teaching. Its lesson, like those
of Hogarth, is made as direct and obvious as possible, and
even repeated under various different forms. The moral is
too coarse and palpable to be quite satisfactory to a very
thoughtful observer ; great criminals are not always fools, if
folly is only to be measured by the troubles into which it
brings itself; but the true philosophy of a subject so intricate
as this would be too subtle for the caricaturist, who simply
tells us that Jack or Patrick committed murder or felony,
and was sent to prison, and the treadmill, and Botany Bay.
Cruikshank's argument is, that because Jack by crime
exposed himself to punishment, and got punished, therefore
Jack was a fool to risk consequences so unpleasant. But
might not the same prudential argument be turned against
innocence itself } And if we were as clever caricaturists as
Cruikshank, might we not compose a plate illustrative of the
folly of virtue } If dishonesty lands its more artless practi-
tioners on dunghills, it also not unfrequently rewards its
craftier votaries with considerable comfort, and even luxury ;
and the readiness to lie when the world requires it has saved
many a man from social degradation. Some things ought
to be said and done which, if estimated in this prudential
CR UIKSHANK AND DO YLE. 3 2 1
way, are follies^ and nothing is proved against a criminal by
merely showing that his act may lead to unpleasant results.
A taste for reading the Bible, which is not now considered
blameable in this country, has brought hundreds within the
terrible grip of the Inquisition. Bad deeds are not distin-
guishable from good deeds by the reward they bring to
the agent ; and if homicide leads one man to hard
labour for life, so there have been instances where it has
opened paths to the loftiest social ambition. It is probable
that virtuous men enjoy a serene independence of out-
ward circumstances to which the vicious never attain;
failure does not fret them, nor hardship weary them so much ;
but this inward peace is rather beyond our Hogarths and
Cruikshanks, and it is even beyond the sympathy of our
common public, which, in its commendable love for good
folks, is never quite content unless the novelist rewards them
with a carriage and pair. And even this inward peace of
the virtuous is not always to be counted upon, for virtuous
people are not always altogether satisfied with themselves.
Without being one of the most remarkable instances of
Cruikshank's unusual precision with the point, this etching is
accomplished and even brilliant in execution. There are
some admirable gradations on surfaces, as, for instance, that
on the left leg of the large central figure, and there is a
choice of means affording powerful contrasts of manipula-
tion. Observe the vigorous touches on the detached stone,
and the handling on the figure itself. The sea and sky in
the little subject mentioned above as number 9, are very
simple in method, but as good as the bits of distance in some
of the most celebrated old masters.
The Elves and the Shoemaker, — There was a shoemaker
who worked very hard and was very honest. He had nothing
left but leather for one pair of shoes ; he cut it out and laid
it aside at night, and next morning found his shoes made.
As the workmanship was very good, there was no difficulty
Y
322 CRUIKSHANK AND DO YL£.
in finding a purchaser^ so the poor shoemaker bought more
leather and cut out several pairs of shoes, and laid the pieces
in the same place at night, and the next day found the shoes
finished with the same excellent workmanship. The process
was repeated, till the shoemaker became rich ; then he and
his wife determined to watch at night, to see how the shoes
were made, and they discovered that tA\'o industrious little
elves came and worked for them. Then the shoemaker and
his wife resolved in their gratitude to make clothes for these
elves, because they were naked, and they made little garments
and laid them in the room and watched for the elves, who
on their arrival, dressed themselves with great glee and ran
away capering out of the door, never again to enter it But
the shoemaker and his wife remained rich ever after.
This pleasant tale, in a well-known book, Grimm's
"German Stories," was so well adapted to the genius of
Cruikshank, that it has suggested one of the very best of all
his etchings. The two elves, especially the nearer one, who
is putting on his breeches, are drawn with a point at once so
precise and vivacious, so full of keen fun and inimitably
happy invention, that I have not found their equals in comic
etching anywhere, and they are as supreme in their own
department of the art as Haden's "Shere Mill-pond," or
Claude's " Bouvier " in theirs. It is said that these elves are
regarded with peculiar affection by the great master who
created them, which is only natural, for he has a right to be
proud of them. The picturesque details of the room are
etched with the same felicitous intelligence, but the marvel
of the work is in the expression of the strange little faces,
and the energy of the comical wee limbs.
Return from a delightful Trip on the Continent. — ^This is
a fair specimen of Cruikshank's simple manner. It is a scene
of sea-sickness ; a boatful of passengers, male and female,
are landing from a continental steamer. The sea is very
rough, and in the little transit the passengers suffer acutely.
CR UIKSHANK AND DO YLE. 323
One old gentleman, who bends over the water, as people in
this lamentable condition are wont to do, has lost his hat and
wig, and there is intentional satire in the resemblance
between the cap of another passenger, whose loose ear-flaps
are lifted by the wind, and the headgear consecrated to fools.
Two thick sailors are rowing, and the women are in the
utmost misery and confusion. The adjuncts are sketched as
suggestively as those in the woodcuts of John Leech. The
spray leaps high, and the steam and smoke from the funnels
of the ship are carried away in straight lines by the gale.
Dougal MacCallutn and Hutcheon. — An illustration of
an incident in " Redgauntlet," narrated as follows by the
novelist : —
"When midnight came, and the house was quiet as the
grave, sure enough the silver whistle sounded as sharp and
shrill as if Sir Robert were blowing it, and up got the twa
auld serving-men and tottered into the room where the dead
man lay. Hutcheon saw aneugh at the first glance, for there
were torches in the room which showed him the foul flend, in
his ain shape, seated on the Laird's coffin."
This is one of the best of Cruikshank's many book-
illustrations. The union of comedy with solemn circum-
stances gives free expression to both the great faculties of
the caricaturist. Cruikshank is a comic etcher, and the
greatest comic etcher who ever lived, but his mind realises
the solemnity of death. This coffin lying in state, with a
monkey perched on the top of it, and two domestics horror-
stricken at the demoniacal apparition, is a subject very
suitable to a genius in which a sense of the ridiculous co-
exists with the most tragic earnestness.
Doyle. A student of the Old Masters, — Colonel New-
come is sitting in the National Gallery, trying to see the
merits of the old masters. Observe the enormous exaggera-
tion of aerial perspective resorted to in order to detach the
324 CRUIKSHAJ^K AND DOYLE.
figure of the Colonel. The people behind him must be
several miles away ; the floor of the room^ if judged by aerial
perspective only, is as broad as the lake of Lucerne.
His Highness. — Colonel Newcome is saluted by the
Indian. Observe the entire absence of local colour. The
Colonel's black hat and blue coat, and Barnes Newcome's
black evening costume have exactly the same weight of
colour as Colonel Newcome's white shirt-frilL
A Meditation. — Clive is meditating in his studio on the
vanity of mediocre painting. The opportunity was a good
one for clever sketching of still life, but it has not been seized
upon or cared for, and Doyle has taken no interest in the
things that surround the artist, which are sketched quite
unobservantly.
CHAPTER VIII.
SAMUEL PALMER,
T^HIS artist is one of the few really great English etchers,
but as it results from the nature of his work that each
plate of his is very costly in time, and as he happens to be a
successful painter in water-colour, the consequence is that his
production in etching has been extremely limited. For reasons
which I have endeavoured to explain in the chapter on the
Revival of Etching in England, a successful painter, however
well he may be able to etch, can do so only at a sacrifice, and
etching is too laborious, as well as too much like the ordinary
work of a painter, to afford the refreshment of a recreation. So
long as human nature remains what it is, people will not highly
value a work of art which others can easily procure, so that
the more public the benefit which an artist bestows upon his
countrymen, the less will be his reward. If ever a true
appreciation of art shall become general amongst our des-
cendants, they will wonder how it was possible that Samuel
Palmer, to whom was given genius and length of days, and who
in his time, as they will see, was one of the most accomplished
etchers who ever lived, should have left behind him just half-
a-dozen plates. We can tell them how it happened, how one
who had mastered the art and loved it, neglected it year after
year, simply because his contemporaries did not value beauty
when it could be multiplied.
The work of this master in etching has been more than
once compared to mezzotint engraving. I said in the first
edition of The Etcliet^s Handbook that " the delightfulness of
326 SAMUEL PALMER,
it might be preserved in mezzotint," and a critic in one of the
leading reviews said " Samuel Palmer is in fact a mezzotinter."
Such expressions as these are due to what is at first sight most
obvious in this master*s way of etching, the richness of its light
and shade. Constable said that one reason why chiaroscuro
was of such great importance was because it first struck the
spectator. Now the light and shade of Palmer's etchings
might, indeed, be copied very accurately in mezzotint, and a
good mezzotint engraver would come nearer than any other
engraver to the general aspect and quality of the plates, but
a fuller study of the originals, and a sounder knowledge of the
resources of different arts, will prove that Samuel Palmer is
not simply a mezzotinter, not simply an imitator of mezzotint
in etching. The principle of his work is much wider than
that. It may be expressed in a single word — eclecticism.
Etching is so versatile that you may imitate several different
arts by means of it, and, therefore, an artist skilful to avail
himself of this versatility may select the qualities which in
other arts seem to him most desirable, and combine them har-
moniously in one work. This is the true explanation of Palmer's
method. He is an eclectic, an artist who, although using
etching as his means of expression, remembers all along the
powers and qualities of other graphic arts, and adopts them
when he chooses, incorporating them into his own work, but
so ably that its unity does not suffer. It is quite fair to say
that he has adopted the qualities of mezzotint so far as they
are to be got by work that is bitten and not raised in a bur,
but it is not fair to imply that he limits himself to these
qualities. In the very same plate, which strikes you by its
resemblance to a mezzotint, you will find, if you look into it
more closely, that there is an abundance of well selected line-
work, not less masterly in choice, and right in expression than
that of Turner and Haden, though quite original, and conse-
quently different from theirs. And besides this line-work, if
you look more closely still, you will discover passages which
SAMUEL PALMER. 327
have the peculiar qualities of woodcut, I mean of such wood-
cutting as IS done upon its own principle, and is not an
imitation of something else ; in other words, you will discover
passages where neither the organic line nor yet the soft
mezzotint-like shade is the important thing, but where sparkling
touches of white, in the midst of intense black, are the true
means of expression. Besides these, it is easy to find spaces
in the more important plates which are treated with as near
an approach to line-engraving as would be compatible with
the harmony of the whole — a harmony which is never forgotten,
and never marred.
Now if I want a comparison to illustrate the eclectic
character of such etching as this, I have one close at hand in
the language which I am using, the English tongue, which is
the most eclectic of all languages. The spirit of it is to choose
everywhere the means of expression which seem most con-
venient for the moment, and it does this apparently with little
regard to harmony, yet with a result which is perfectly har-
monious. He who has the privilege of writing this rich and
various language may be truly said to borrow his means of ex-
pression from Anglo-Saxon, from old French, from Latin and
Greek abundantly, yet he is not writing these languages, nor
any one of them ; he is writing English. Just so the language
which Samuel Palmer uses in etching is neither mezzotint,
nor woodcut, nor line-etching, but a pure original langyage of
his own, which I cannot call by any name but his.
As for the thoughts which he has to express, they are
pure poetry, and come to him from that rich realm of the
imagination which the poets only can find at all, and which
they find everywhere. There is more feeling, and insight,
and knowledge, in one twig drawn by his hand, than in the
life's production of many a well-known artist. Words cannot
express the qualities of such work as his, but we can say that
it unites the ripest and fullest knowledge with the most per-
fect temper, a temper of patience almost without limit, and of
328 SAMUEL PALMER,
tenderness which is alive to all loveliness, even that which
is most lowly and obscure, hardening itself against nothing
that is beautiful Rarely has an artist's maturity been so com-
plete. The work of his old age is like a great fine fruit which
has been in the sun for many days, until all its juices have
had just the full time and heat needed for the most perfect
mellowness, yet on-which you shall not find the slightest sign
that it has hung on the branch too long. No young man
ever had the fulness of knowledge which is necessary for such
work as that, and few old men have had the serenity of
temper, or the powers of work, which are needed for such a
complete expression of their knowledge.
" During twenty years," I wrote in 1872, " Samuel Palmer's
work has become for me more and more beautiful, more and
more abundantly satisfying. It is so tender as to remind us of
all that is softest and sweetest in the heart of pastoral nature,
and yet so learned that it seems as if some angel had met the
artist in his studious solitude, and taught him. Imaginations
graceful as a maiden's dream, but without her ignorance,
teachings profounder than those of science, yet without her
pedantry, a serene spirit inherited from the true and great
poets of the times of old who are his fathers — all these he
gives us with his art"
His aim as an executant is not consciously distinct from
passing thought and feeling, it is not thought of by the artist as
a purpose in itself. Here let me pause to consider one danger
concerning execution in the fine arts which I have not hitherto
dwelt upon, but which is serious enough to merit grave con-
sideration. A practised executant acquires a fatal facility, so
that at last he can execute without having either new thoughts
or new emotions. He has certain forms in the memory
like a printed schedule, and he fills them up mechanically,
without waiting till he has ideas to put under the several
headings. Nothing can be more convenient to the handi-
craftsman than this power of working without thinking, but
SAMUEL PALMER. 329
"- - - ■
nothing is more dangerous to the artist It hurries him along
whether he is ready or not, till his soul becomes a mere victim
tied to the tail of the executive habit which gallops away like
a wild horse, the bit between its teeth. As one art illustrates
another, and the fine arts are all subject to the same laws, I
may take the case of an orator whose tongue goes as fast as
it can whether the ideas are in time for it or not The best
public speaker I ever heard avoided this error completely.
He spoke slowly when the thoughts followed slowly, and had
the courage to remain quite silent from time to time when the
thought was not ready for expression. It is far more trying
for an orator to do this in the presence of a thousand hearers,
than for an etcher in the solitude of his own room, and yet
graphic artists have rarely authority enough over the hand to
make it follow the mind instead of leading it Samuel Palmer
said of Claude, *' his execution is of that highest kind which
has no independent essence, but lingers and hesitates with the
thought, and is lost and found in a bewilderment of intricate
beauty." In this sentence we have the key to the writer's
own ways of work as an etcher : he dislikes execution, however
brilliant, which is not subordinate to the thought ; or perhaps,
to put it more accurately, the best execution, in his view, is
tentative, and submissively waits whilst the mind seeks, always
humbly following and endeavouring to obey, never hurrying
the executive processes till they get ahead of the perceptive
and inventive processes. And I venture to add that the
beautiful sentence in which Samuel Palmer described the
excellence of Claude is accurately descriptive of his own ex-
cellence, and I would have said of Samuel Palmer, if I had
known how to write anything so good, just these words, "his
execution is of that highest kind which has no independent
essence, but lingers and hesitates with the thought, and is lost
and found in a bewilderment of intricate beauty."
Tfie Early Ploughman, — ^This etching was first published
330 SAMUEL PALMER.
in the first edition of the present work under the above title,
but on more recent impressions I perceive that Mr. Palmer
has added the inscription,
" The morning spread upon the mountains."
I always greatly admired this plate, but the full beauty of
it was unsuspected until Mr. Palmer set up a printing-press in
his own house, and his son began to take proofs under the
artist's direction. The earliest proof of this plate in my posses-
sion is of a state preceding the final one, and is touched upon by
the etcher to mark intended alterations, especially in the pop-
lars, the biting, however, is definitive everywhere,* and yet the
work looks comparatively grey and pale, owing to unscientific
printing. The impressions in the first edition of Etching and
E tellers are better, but are still far from doing full justice to the
plate. In November and December 1873, Mr. Palmer having
then established his private press, his son kindly took two proofs
for me, which for the first time made me fully acquainted with
the merits not only of this particular work, but of its author's
method of etching. The use of vigorous line-work in the
poplars and elder to the right may not be so obvious as it is
in Turner's etchings, which were shaded in mezzotint, but the
principle of it is the same, and the lines themselves are nearly
as vigorous as those of Turner. The execution in this part of
the work, indeed in most of the etching before us, is founded
upon the strong etched line for organic markings, whilst a
delicate close shading at a later stage of the process does for
it what the mezzotint did for Turner's etchings, or in other
words gives it shade and mass. The reader is requested to
guard himself against the almost universal confusion between
line and outline. He will find most vigorous line-work in
Palmer's etchings, yet hardly such a thing as an outline any-
* The reader acquainted with technical matters will Icam with some surprise
that Mr. Palmer has never once had recourse to rebiting. This only shows the
remarkable skill with which he manages the acid — a skill the more remarkable
that he has etched so few plates.
SAMUEL PALMER. 331
where. The losing and finding of beautiful detail amidst the
mysterious confusion of nature would indeed be altogether in-
compatible with outlines, which define things like countries on
a map. The ploughman here, and his team of oxen, are most
perfect examples of Palmer's manner of using line and shade.
There is a good deal of line, some of it deeply bitten, yet you
can hardly catch an outline, unless by accident as it seems, and
then it eludes you. The man and animals are softly lighted
by the dawn, and they are visible in the dim light with just
as much definition as they would have in a good painting,
and no more. Palmer's treatment of objects in the foreground
is opposed to Lalanne's doctrine, that foregrounds should be
etched in strong and open lines, for he sees that in nature
foregrounds are not less delicate than distances. In this plate,
the shading upon the man's shirt, and on the face of the light-
coloured ox, is indeed closer and finer in texture than that on
the distant mountain.
The sky is etched very much upon the principle of line-
engraving. It has two distinct textures, one over the other, to
give transparence and depth, a close texture in pale lines, and
a much more open texture in darker lines. There is much en-
graver-like skill (of a right kind) in the management of these
lines for shading. They run in varied curves, and always at
a safe distance from each other, so that there is no uninten-
tional doubling. Nothing can be more judicious than the
direction given to these undulating lines of shade.
All this technical commentary has left me little room to
speak of the artistic beauty of the conception, but the reader
is not to suppose that technical criticism deadens the feelings
which apprehend the true poetry and significance of art. On
the contrary, it is impossible to appreciate the full technical
merit of such work as this without at the same time knowing
what the lines mean, and sharing the sweetness of the
inefiable sentiment which they are intended to convey. It is
the sentiment of a poet and a painter, who loves the loveliest
332 SAMUEL PALMER.
hours, and has watched them all his life. No sudden delight
in the unaccustomed spectacle of a sunrise ever yet gave the
town-bred artiat such knowledge of the dawn-mystery as this.
Many a night has the etcher of this plate wandered in a land
of beauty from sunset to sunrise, from twilight to twilight,
from the splendour of the west to the splendour of the east,
watching through the gradual changes of the hours, and gather-
ing for us that rare learning of which his works are full.
Tlie Herdsman, — ^This plate was published in the Selection
of Etchings by tlie Etching Club, 1865. The subject is a
moonrise in a hilly country. To the left is a magnificent tree
(chestnut, I think) in full foliage, and under it the herdsman is
driving his cattle towards the farm which lies in the dark
hollow, and is made visible only by the moonlight which
catches the edges of the roofs and gables, and the smoke from
the chimneys. In the right foreground is the broken trunk
of a tree, which also catches the moonlight, and there is a
great sparkle and glitter of it upon the leaves in this part of
the etching. The hill is extremely dark, and above it the sky
is covered with a voluminous cloud.
The sky in this magnificent plate is etched upon the same
principles as that in the Early Ploughman ; the treatment, too,
of the figure and animals is like that of the ploughman and
his oxen, but the rest of the etching is done very much upon
the principles of woodcut, I mean that the artist, although he
has been working in black, thought rather of the white spaces
or specks which he reserved in the midst of it than of the
black itself. In the large chestnut the etched line is still
visible as a means of defining foliage, but the leaves and
trunk under the moon are all picked out of an intensely black
ground in touches of white. It is wonderful how minute are
many of the atoms of white which have a most important
influence upon the effect. Those in the dark hill are most of
them scarcely bigger than a pin's point, and yet they prevent
the darkness from being blacky whilst at the same time they
SAMUEL PALMER, 333
give obscure indications of form, which make the hill really a
hill, and not a mere flat piece of black paper. The massive
tree to the left is one of the finest studies of foliage ever
etched. Every cluster of leaves has been carefully thought
out for itself, whilst the grandeur of the masses has been pre-
served as completely as it could have been in the most
energetic sketch. The little gleams of light along the edges
of the roofs reveal the various curves caused by the yielding or
irregularity of the timbers, and even in such a minor detail
as the goad on the herdsman's shoulder the utmost care is
taken to indicate its departure from mechanical straightness.
I could not mention a better example of pervading artistic
intelligence, which whilst never forgetting, even for an instant,
the unity of the whole work, applies itself nevertheless with
unfailing and unflagging attention to every detail, how-
ever apparently insignificant It is scarcely too much to
say that there is not in this etching an atom of white or black
— I will not say the size of a pin's head, but rather of its
point — which is not there in obedience to a distinct artistic
decision.
Ttie Rising Maott, — This plate was published in 1857 in a
little set issued by the Art Union of London. The moon
has nearly but not quite disengaged herself from behind the
shoulder of a hill, and she lights a flock of sheep in the fore-
ground. The scenery is of the same order as that of the pre-
ceding subject It is amongst the low hills of the south of
England, and we are looking down into a hollow, in which
nestles a large gabled mansion. A church tower is dimly
visible against a dark hill, a few poplars rise out of the hollow
against the sky, and a tree in the foreground catdfes the
moonlight in its leaves. To the right is a vast plain with a
level horizon, responded to by level lines of white cloud in
the elaborate sky.
This plate has the technical qualities of the " Herdsman,"
but not in so striking a degree. The subject is very beautiful,
334 SAMUEL PALMER.
i^-ith an aspect of more perfect repose and serenity* than the
other etching. Xotvinthstanding the rather coarse texture of
the sk}% it fulAls its purpose admirably, prox-ing what a
peculiar thing interpretation is in art. and how opposed to
imitation. No natural sky e\'er showed texture of this kind,
with its strong markings of black lines and dots, and yet this
texture perfectly conveys to us the character of sk\- intended.
The whole plate is interesting as a study of texture, obser\'e
especially the soft wool of the sheep with the moonlight on
it and in it The figure of the rustic in his smock is beauti-
fully indicated by touches of white.
It seldom happens that Samuel Palmer does an^-thing
which can be found fault with from the artistic point of \neWy
his arrangements of material being generally not only quite
above censure, but marked by a happy originality of artistic
thought and invention. In the present instance, however, he
has fallen into the well-knoun error which is commonly called
exaggerated perspective — commonly but not quite accurately,
as the perspective itself may be free from exaggeration,
scientifically true, and yet sure to give a false impression. It
would be out of place to enter fully into this subject here, for
the few who understand it need no explanation, and the many
who do not would require a complete essay on the subject,
illustrated, which they would never take the trouble to master,
so I will say simply that the sheep here are not in false per-
spective, but in very injudicious perspective. They look
monstrously big, and the rustic who is coming home does not
look distant, he seems like a pigmy. The landscape is far
too beautiful and too interesting to be a mere background to
the sheep, and the sheep are too important to be nothing but
adjuncts to the landscape. Besides this there is not drawing
enough in the sheep for that scale. They ought to have been
drawn as Rosa Bonheur draws, and not mere bales of flesh,
^\Tapped up in wool, with a head at one end or the other.
The Morning of Life, — This plate has also been called
SAMUEL PALMER. 335
"Work and Gossip." It is an effect of sunlight flaming
through branches of strong old trees, with their roots in a
narrow rivulet. In the rivulet some boys are washing sheep,
two others are dragging and pushing a ram to the water. A
girl on her hands and knees is gossiping with a youth. She
has been gathering fruit, and has a basket close to her, whilst
apples are scattered on the ground.
If classical education, in literature and art, never had a
worse effect upon modern performance than it has here, we
should not have a word to say against it There is something
of Virgil's spirit here, something of Claude's, and I know not
what other beautiful associations with, or reminiscences of,
many another poet of the past who may have learned the
deep sylvan secrets, and known the joy and beauty of young
life under the greenwood tree. No doubt the love of nature
is evident enough in this plate, but at least equally evident is
the delight in noble art and the far-reaching memory of it, in
sweet sympathy with what the immortal poets have sung or
painted when they too were alive upon the earth, and knew
the glory and freshness of the morning. Hence this etching
is equally removed from the vulgarity of the realism which
has no associations, no memories, no melodies of old music in
the brain, and froiA the dulness of blind tradition, which can
only repeat what others have done without any insight, or
sentiment, or invention of its own.
A more magnificent piece of design in trunks and foliage
was never etched. The use of line here is very original and
extremely powerful. The originality of it consists in the
peculiar and unforeseen way in which the lines begin and
end, and in the apparently wayward yet profoundly intelligent
placing of the lines. They are not outlines, unless here and
there by accident ; they are simply markings put wherever
they would be most useful ultimately, and it is a very interest-
ing and profitable critical exercise to observe the curious
cunning with which this is always done. Another peculiarity
336 SAMUEL PALMER.
about them deserves to be noticed It is one of the few
defects of etching that the needle cannot enlarge and diminish
the line in the same stroke as the brush can, or even the pen ;
but here this defect is apparently overcome, and there is an
increase of thickness in the lines, which often beg^n with a
fine hair-stroke and become broad in the middle, ending again
almost imperceptibly.* These organic lines, strongly bitten,
are the skeleton of the subject, and over them is cast a veil of
shade, not deeply bitten, and with very little texture in it, as
soft in quality as the shade in a charcoal drawing.
So much for the means employed. The knowledge of
effect is of course consummate ; it is proved more especially
by the way in which the blaze of sunlight fuses and bums
away, as it were, the branches and leaves which come between
us and the orb, carrying away even the solid edge of a strong
bough. Yet there is no exaggeration of light in the fore-
ground, for there is really a screen of branches between it and
the sun, admitting only a filtered light As for the figures it
is impossible to introduce figures more beautifully in land-
scape. They are drawn with the most exquisite taste, and
with all the knowledge that is needed, whilst for combined
energy and grace of attitude they remind us rather of Stothard
or Flaxman than of any inferior men, though neither of these
great artists could have set figures in landscape as these are
set
The Full Moon, (From Bampfylde's "Christmas.")— A
rustic is bringing his sheep into the fold close to a thatched
cottage. Children are coming to welcome him, and a little
girl is petting the dog. The door of the cottage is open, and
we see the plate-rack inside, and the housewife preparing the
table for supper. High in the sky is the full moon, over the
tops of the trees.
There is some particularly thorough branch-drawing here
in the near tree to the left The figures are very beautifully
* This is probably managed by repeated touches with a finer poinL
SAMUEL PALMER, 337
conceived, in movements at once most natural and most
graceful. As for the tonality of the plate, it is so perfect as
to produce, after looking at it for a little time, almost the
effect of illusion. It is one of the most thorough pieces
of etched chiaroscuro in existence, the notes of light and
dark being all faultlessly in tune, like the notes of a well-
played melody.
Sunrise, (Published in the Portfolio for November 1872.)
— Another very perfect little plate, having on a much smaller
scale many of the qualities which we have already noticed in
" The Morning of Life." The sun is rising between the gable
of a farm-house and the trunks of trees in a wood. A herds-
man with his dog is driving two cows across the foreground.
In the left-hand corner a tiny cascade of water is falling from
the rock into a little pool. The trunks of the trees cast
shadows, and the ground is brilliantly illuminated by the
early light
It is unnecessary to enter into any detailed description of
this plate after the criticism of the larger one in which the
same effect is rendered. In its own way it is like some pearl
or diamond without a flaw, but pearls and diamonds are very
common things upon the earth in comparison with etchings
of this quality.
Comcy thou Monarch of the Vine ! — In the "Songs of
Shakespeare," illustrated by the Etching Club, the most per-
fect work which the club ever produced, Samuel Palmer had
two compositions, the larger one representing the arrival of
Bacchus amongst his worshippers in a wood where the vine
grows luxuriantly amongst the trees, and the other represent-
ing four plump, naked children gathering grapes from a vine
which creeps round a massive bole, and hangs from mighty
boughs. In these two subjects the figures are of much more
apparent importance than in the others which we have been
considering, in fact these are strictly figfure-compositions.
The larger one is full of power and vivacity. Bacchus comes
z
338 SAMUEL PALMER.
in a blaze of light, truly divine, and his worshippers receive
him with aves of extravagant ecstasy. The figfure-drawing is
at once energetic and voluptuous, the action and composition
artistic in the extreme, quite in the temper of the great
masters. The whole scene is full of light, and life, and joy,
enough to make would-be revelling pagans of us all, es^er to
be drunk with new wine in some warm southern bower, and
there sing
Come, thou monarch of the vine !
Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne ;
In thy vats our cares be drowned,
With thy grapes our hairs be crown'd,
Cup us till the world go round ;
Cup us till the world go round !
CHAPTER IX.
MILLAIS,
npHE pre-Raphaelite discipline, which was a protest against
inadequate synthesis, and a temporary return to
analysis, was highly unfavourable to etching so long as it
lasted, but in the well-known career of Millais there came a
period of emancipation from excessive analysis, and this
would have been the time for him to etch. He did so a
little, but most of his talent as a sketcher in black and white
has been spent in drawing upon wood. Very many of his
drawings on wood have all the qualities of good etchings
which the difference of the two processes will permit.
His manner of sketching is an excellent manner for an etcher.
It is delicate without over-minuteness, and it is rapid and free
without neglecting anything essential. Some of the best
sketches by Millais are the little vignettes which accompany
the initial letters in " The Small House at AUington," such
for example, as the sketch of the large house with the squire
walking on the terrace (chap. xxxviL). It may seem to care-
less observers a very easy thing to do such a sketch as that,
and no doubt it was done easily, but only a consummate
artist could have drawn it just in that happy way. The
croquis of the London houses, in one of which Crosbie and
Lady Alexandrina spent that delightful married life of theirs,
is also quite in the temper of etching ; indeed such a subject
as that would not be endurable in art if treated with any
nearer approach to imitatioa But it is unnecessary to men-
tion instances, for nearly all the drawings on wood which
340 MILLAIS.
Millais has produced since he abandoned pre-Raphaelitism
have been little else than etchings in spirit, though they are
technically woodcuts because they have been engraved by
the woodcutter.
There is, however, a very wide difference in delicacy
between these woodcuts and the original etched work of
Millais, a difference quite enough to make us deplore that
condition of the public taste which renders it an imprudence
for him to etch his own designs, when the finest line of the
needle would be safe for ever, and yet not an imprudence,
even for so successful a painter, to draw upon wood when
every line is imperilled by the burin of the engraver after-
wards. I have already gone into the commercial reasons
which account for this. The picture is profitable because it
is unique, the woodcut is profitable because it shares in the
large sale commanded by a popular novelist ; but the etching is
neither unique on the one hand, nor popular on the other.
Yet it is a great loss to the fine arts when such a draughts-
man as Millais has to entrust his designs to the wood-
engraver instead of etching them himself He has all the
gifts of the etcher, and if this earth were a world in which all
good gifts were valued at their worth, Millais would by this
time have entrusted many noble designs to the faithful keep-
ing of steeled copper.
The Young Mother, — This is the twenty-ninth plate in the
etchings published for the Art Union of London in 1857. It
is the best etching by Millais that I have seen. The figure
of the young woman is very beautifully sketched, as she bends
over her infant and kisses the palm of its tiny hand. The
lines which indicate the folds of her dress are, in the lights,
very free and true ; but in the shaded parts the cross hatching
made use of is not quite so purely etcher's work. The High-
land cottages and sketch of shore in tlie distance show most
intimate knowledge of the true character of Highland scenery,
and much affection for it.
CHAPTER X.
COPE, HORSLEY, HOOK,
T JNTIL the plate of "The Life School, Royal Academy,"
was exhibited by Mr. Cope in 1867, the position he
held as an etcher was on the usual level of our Etching Club,
but the " Life School " revealed more power and originality.
It was published in the first edition of this volume.
In Mr. Cope's earlier manner the cleverest thing I
remember is the study of the old man in the illustrations to
the "Songs of Shakespeare "(" Passionate Pilgrim"). That
figure was remarkably observant and truthful, and drawn
with unusual precision. There are several etchings by the
same artist of much inferior merit.
Mr. Horsley has etched a few really good things amongst
others not so good. His touch is often free and right, and
his still-life is usually admirable. When he spoils a plate,
which he has done occasionally, it is from over-work in
hatching.
Mr. Hook has done one magnificent plate, "The Egg-
gatherer," but his etching aims so decidedly at full tone that
when the relations of light and dark come wrong in the biting
the work is lost and spoiled. When tone-etchers succeed it
is well, their work looks rich and full ; but when they fail, and
they often do so from mere miscalculation about acid, not
from ignorance, the failure seems complete. Mr. Hook relies
much upon texture also, and little upon line, and the quality
of his work is always painter-like. The smaller illustration of
Shakespeare's song, " Who is Silvia } " is the nearest approach
342 COPE, HORSLEY, HOOK,
to line-etching that I know of his. When an artist has
reached such decided success as this we hardly like to dis-
courage .him by suggestions of alteration in manner; but if
Hook could keep his full and rich tonality, whilst adding to
it some liberty and emphasis of line, and some bolder use of
open line in shading, he might become an etcher of a higher
order.
Cope. Tlie Life School, Royal Academy. — This is a true
etching, and one of the manliest pieces of work ever executed
in England. The subject is a remarkably good one, because
it composes of itself so naturally, and because the effect of
chiaroscuro is so powerful. Of all recent attempts to render
the naked figure in pure etching, the model here is one of the
most successful, — it is frank and genuine etcher s work ; the
reader is especially invited to notice the w^ay in which the
reflected lights are reserved on the muscles of the back, and
the firm shading over them. The figures of the students are
very true and various in attitude. Much of the power of this
etching is due to the fearless use of the pure etched line,
which is often left to itself, as for instance on tlie floor and
screen, and when crossed by hatchings, as in the curtain, and
dark shade above the reflectors, never interrupted uselessly,
but for the simple purpose of obtaining necessary darks.
Winter Song, — This is a fair example of the better sort of
English work. It is not yet strong etching, because there is
little power of line, but the shading is in its way honest,
though it would have gained by greater simplicity and open-
ness. Mr. Cope has produced other etchings of this class
which it is not necessary to criticise specially. He has
carried the kind of execution which has been chiefly aimed at
by the Etching Club as far as any of its members.
HORSI.EY. The Duenna's Return (in Mr. Cundall's series).
— A duenna is coming back from a walk, and finds her charge
COPEy HORSLEY, HOOK. 343
talking with a young gentleman at the window. This is a
much nearer approach to true etching than is usual in this
country. There is considerable freedom of hand, and the
value of local colour as light and dark appears to be fully
appreciated. The passage of light in the small panes above
the door is very beautifully given. The plate is signed J. C.
Horsley, 1864, and is decidedly the best work of the artist
known to me.
TJie Deserted Village (plate 61). — The lower of the two
etchings on this plate, representing a spindle with an arm-
chair near an open window, is one of the most brilliant bits of
still life I know in modem etching.
Interior of a Weaver^ s Cottage (" Deserted Village," plate
29). — ^The artistic motive of this little subject is intricacy ^
which, illustrated in other ways, is a favourite motive of
Whistler's. There is a want of distinction in lights and darks
under the loom about the man's legs ; but, with that draw-
back, this IS one of the cleverest little etchings in the volume.
Hook. Gathering Eggs fro7n tfie Cliff. — I believe that
etching can go no farther than this in the imitation of the
effects produced in modern painting. This plate so entirely
expresses Mr. Hook's manner on canvas that it is not an
exaggeration to say that we may see in it the rich copal
glazes and the skilful dry touching, of which, as a painter, he
is such an accomplished master. This is less an etching than
a translation of oil colour ; but, in its own way, it is skilful
beyond praise. The scene is the front of a rocky cliff and a
wide expanse of sea with a high horizon. One boy is letting
down another by a rope from a ledge of rock, and a sea-gull
is flying within a yard or two of the robber. Other sea-gulls
are flying over the sea, and there is a line of white cloud on
the horizon. The local colour is everywhere so full that even
the grey on the near gull's back is carefully rendered, and
scarcely a touch of pure white is admitted anywhere except
344 COPE, HORSLEY, HOOK,
in the distant clouds, and in the foam that breaks amongst
the rocks. Both cliff and sea are, I will not say etched, but
painted with all the artist's habitual wealth of colour, and it
needs but little imagination to supply the very hues themselves.
The FishcTffiafi s Good-night, — A fisherman is parting from
his wife and child, who are sitting on a high sea-wall to which
a strong ladder is bound firmly. The man is just descending
the ladder, and his right leg is straight whilst his left knee
rests upon the wall. The conception of this etching is almost
as painter-like as that of the one just criticised, but it is not
so successful in execution because there are obvious failures
in tonality. The two legs are one undistinguishable blot ;
and the side of the ladder, the man's waistcoat, and the clif)
behind him, are all as nearly as possible of one tone. It is
quite curious how certain modem English etchers dread the
frankness of a clear line. If Rembrandt had had to etch that
ladder and that pair of trousers, he would have shaded them
with honest open strokes, presenting, it is true, no appearance
of paint, but far more explanatory of the thing. And even
when a great etcher is not very explanatory — as will some-
times happen when the nature of material is half lost in un-
distinguishable shade — he will throw his lines across it with-
out trying to soften them into the semblance of water-colour
washes. In this fisherman and ladder ten strokes are given
where two were necessary, and after all the subject is so little
explained that you cannot distinguish one leg from the other.
CHAPTER XL
CRESWICK, REDGRAVE, RIDLEY.
/^^ RES WICK etched very prettily, but his work was very
distantly related to the greater art which has sometimes
occupied our thoughts. Creswick's workmanship was delicate
and refined in the extreme, and his oppositions of tone were
usually just, but he had no independent and original interpre-
tation. The craft that he had learned, and he had learned it,
was taught him by the engravers, not perhaps in direct
personal counsel, but by an influence fully received, whether
consciously or unconsciously. If he had a bit of pasture-
ground to etch, or a piece of foliage, you are sure to find the
very touches with which professional engravers are accustomed
to do these things. SOme of Creswick's vignettes are good
enough as engraver's work to be inserted in very carefully
illustrated books ; one or two of them might be published in
Rogers without giving any unpleasant shock to eyes just
fresh from the marvellous handicraft of Goodall. Considered
in this independent way, without reference to the art of etch-
ing as it was understood by Rembrandt and the great etchers,
the work of Creswick is of remarkable excellence ; but here,
as in so many other cases, we have to make the reservation,
that, however pretty and delicate it may be, this is not the
kind of work which an etcher ought to aim at or care for. It
is so very pretty, that, if issued separately from the work
of other men, it is probable that it would even be popular ;
but its popularity would, do no good to the work of stronger
etchers. The fact is, that etching of this kind is already quite
346 CRESWICK, REDGRAVE, RIDLEY,
popular enough — there is much of it in modem landscape-
engraving ; and although the public rebels against powerful
etching, it accepts this without any audible complaint ; nay,
it does not even know that such work is etching at all, so
pleasant is it to look upon, but rather inclines to the belief
that it is graven work, the doing of which is a mystery.
Mr. Redgrave, the now veteran painter and writer upon
art, has also been a contributor to the publications of the Etch-
ing Club. The temper of his work is always studious and
sincere, and, besides these qualities, it has a certain tender-
ness of sentiment, but, from the technical point of view, it has
been injured by a striving after finish, which was due, in part,
to the habit of working on a small scale. In 1867 Mr. Red-
grave exhibited a plate at the Royal Academy which proved
that his earlier habits of almost painfully minute execution
were by no means inveterate. That plate was somewhat too
violent in oppositions, but it had the true spirit of etching, and
was not spoiled, as some of the earlier ones were, by too
much labour and too little selection.
Mr. Ridley is a rising and well-educated painter, bom in
1837, who has etched a few plates, chiefly of shipping on
tidal rivers. He is a very genuine etcher, apparently of the
school of Whistler, but in those plates of his which have been
published up to the present time I do not see much evidence
of very keen or subtle observation, whilst they certainly (being
merely studies) exhibit no power of composition. His name
is mentioned here not as that of an etcher who has already
produced important works, but as an example of soundness
in study. There can be little doubt that if the art were
encouraged amongst us Mr. Ridley would soon become one
of its leaders. So far as he has hitherto gone he is on the
right track, but in his praiseworthy rebellion against the faults
of the superfine school he is temporarily primitive in method,
and seems at present to have little conception of the different
CRESWICK, REDGRAVE, RIDLEY, 347
sources of power which are open to the aquafortist^ or to deny
himself their advantages.
Creswick. a Roughish Road by tlie Loch-side,— On the
rough bridle-roads which skirt those shores of the Highland
lochs which are little frequented by tourists, there are in-
numerable subjects far more beautiful and interesting than
this. It is always, however, a delightful moment when we
come at last, on horseback or on foot, to any place where the
road is within six feet of the water, and it is a point of
sympathy between Mr. Creswick and his present critic, that
the artist has felt the charm of getting down to the very lake
itself, even at a spot where the scenery is simple and common-
place. Creswick was seldom a powerful landscape-painter,
but he was always charming, and this little group of trees and
low irregular wall and little glimpse of smooth water have a
certain sweetness of their own.
Tfie Deserted Village (plate 2). — A watermill with a church-
tower to the left In small vignettes of this kind the object
is usually an excessive delicacy of treatment which may
easily pass into effeminacy. The foliage here is very graceful
and light, but it is not masculine work.
The Deserted Village (plate 19). — A broad river with a
bridge across it and castle on an eminence to the left, which
is connected by the bridge with a town on the other shore.
This river flows into a vast dark lake which is interrupted
only by the towers of the castle. Beyond the lake rises an
alp of immense altitude girdled by a rain-storm, above which
its snows rise in the serene air. This is one of the most
perfect and delicate little vignettes of Creswick, and as a piece
of engraving will bear a comparison with much professional
work.
Tlie Deserted Village (plate 34). — The central vignette on
this plate. The subject is a rustic bridge over a small river
in which some cows are standing ; beyond the bridge is a
348 CRESWICK, REDGRAVE, RIDLEY.
clump of magnificent elms, and there is a church-tower in the
remote distance. The sweetness and beauty of this little
composition will be appreciated, I suppose, by every one.
The workmanship is very perfect of its kind, and, after the
reserves which have been made above, may be praised very
heartily.
Redgrave. Barbara. — A vignette in the "Songs of
Shakespeare," which may be taken as representative of what
were the tendencies prevailing in the English school at the
time of its production. The plate is finished like a miniature,
and quite in the spirit of miniature-painting. Barbara is sitting
by the stream, according to the song, and her figure is
surrounded by a sort of framework of trees and plants, every
leaf of which is a separate and careful study, but there is less
careful attention to masses. This etching required the most
delicate printing, and could only be perfectly seen in the
early impressions on India paper printed for the Etching Club.
Corpse discovered in a Wood. — The body, probably of a
murdered man, is found lying on its back in a little hollow
by a gentleman walking that way. This is one of the best of
Redgrave's very laborious plates. He would have painted
the same subject still better.
Silver Thames. — Exhibited in tlie Academy, 1867. A
view on the Thames, very expressive of the character of its
scenery. Alternate gleams and cloud shadows give variety
to the lighting. The oppositions between the shaded and
the lighted trees, though by no means too strong for a state-
ment of that isolated natural fact, are, nevertheless, too strong
relatively to other things in the plate. For example, the
shaded side of the punt, though quite black, is not and cannot
be black enough relatively to the black distance, and the
reflection of the trees in the water is even lighter than the
trees reflected. The clouds are boldly put in, but are some-
what heavy and wanting in form. On the whole, however.
CRESWICK, REDGRAVE, RIDLEY. 349
the plate is really an etching, though not yet of first-rate
quality, and real etchings are rare.
Ridley. North Dock, — Artists are always teaching us to
see something in what we believed to be without interest.
Here is a chimney with a little building near it as ugly as
any in Lancashire, and yet it must be good material, for it
seems right in its place. The masts of the shipping, though
rudely sketched, give the effect of intricacy. There is not
much composition in the plate, but the manual work is simple
and free.
Draham Harbour^ — Rather better than the preceding. A
true etching in a simple manner ; the etched line is relied
upon everywhere.
Dtirham^ — The scenery of the river shore here is quite
remarkable for its ugliness, but the etching is on the whole a
good one, in spite of foul chimneys. Mr. Ridley's honest
objection to anything but the plain line sometimes leads him
to an unnecessary asceticism. The water and sky are here
exactly of the same vacant white, whereas the water would
have benefited greatly by a little delicate tinting in dry-point.
A reflection is always darker than the thing reflected, except
when there is a thin stratum of mist q;i the water-surface.
* These two titles ** Draham Harbour" and "Durham" are given because
they are engraved under the etchings, but a correspondent in the north drew my
attention to their evident geographical inaccuracy. " Draham " probably means
Seaham ; as for Durham, it is not yet a seaport, whatever future engineers may do
for it Let me remind my correspondent, however, that a critic can only call
works of art by the names they bear, whether correctly or erroneously bestowed
upon them.
CHAPTER XII.
TA YLER, ANSDELL, KNIGHT,
rpREDERICK TAYLER carried the English manner as
far as any of his contemporaries. There is especially
one etching of his, in the " Songs of Shakespeare," which has
not, in that kind of work, been surpassed. But Frederick
Tayler had too distinct manners as an etcher: the highly
finished modem way, depending greatly on crev^s,* of vari-
ous depth, and on dry-point whose bur is removed ; and a
much simpler manner in which the qualities of highly-finished
etching were not aimed at. An example of each is criticised
below. I should say, judging from Mr. Tayler's skilful and
rapid manner in water-colour sketching, and from the ability
displayed in the few etchings of his which have been pub-
lished, that he had all the natural gifts of a first-rate etcher,
and nearly all the knowledge, nothing having been wanting to
the full development of his powers in that direction but their
culture on a larger scale in works issued independently.
Ansdell is a very accomplished artist, and when he does
not think about etching at all, but simply sketches as he
would with a finely-pointed pen, he does work of a certain
value which value depends on his knowledge of animals, and
not on his knowledge of etching, in which he does not appear
to be especially interested. I should place a considerable
* To save the reader the trouble of referring to the book on Processes, I may
say here that the cre-c^ (I know no English equivalent for the word) is a hatching,
so close that the separations of the lines cr^vent (give way, die, disappear) in the
biting. Crevcs are of various depth, according to the length of the biting.
TAYLER, ANSDELL, KNIGHT, 351
value on some of his simplest etchings, which are the best,
but they have little technical quality or power.
Mr. Knight has not been so industrious a contributor to
the works of the Etching Club as some other members. The
peculiarities of his manner are sufficiently indicated below, in
the criticisms of two of his plates.
Frederick Tayler. TIu Forester^ s Song. — From
beginning to end, this work proves an entire mastery of the
modern English system. The use of close hatching, by which
tints of various depths are acquired at the sacrifice of line,
has never been carried farther; and if the reader cares to
study a good representative specimen of what English painters
understand by etching, I could not suggest a better.
Although on a small scale the drawing is so clever that all
action and expression is preserved in the hands and features
of the huntsmen. It is only, however, in fine early impressions
that the reader can judge of the technical qualities of this
plate. In later ones the black velvets show blotches, partly,
perhaps, from defective printing.
A Day's Hunting in the Fens (in Mr. Cundall's series). —
A gentleman out hunting is dragging his horse out of a dyke.
This etching has none of the executive finish of the preceding
one, and belongs to a different class. It is scarcely superior
in quality to much modern drawing on wood, nor is there any
work in it which would entirely defeat a first-rate modem
wood-engraver. The work in this plate is throughout sound,
frank, and honest in its own kind.
Ansdell. TJie Sentinel — This magnificent study of a
stag will be found in the etchings published for the Art
Union of London. Considered specially as etching, it may
rank with such German work as that of Gauermann, but the
draughtsmanship is so intelligent as to surpass even the best
designs of Gauermann ; and I suppose no one could have
352 TAYLER, ANSDELL, KNIGHT
drawn such a stag better. In this kind of etching there is not
much technical superiority, because the technical difficulties
of the art are scarcely contended against ; but if we consider
the work simply as a drawing, we must admit that it is very
highly accomplished. The vivacity and precision in the stag's
eye and ears and nostril, and the true setting of the noble
head, prove thorough knowledge of the animal However
this may fall short of great etching, there is no technical
failure, and the plate shows none of those painful signs of
mistaken and wasted labour so frequent in modern work.
FelloW'COfnmoners, — Donkeys and sheep on a common.
This is the eighteenth plate in those published for the Art
Union of London. The drawing of the asses and sheep is
not quite so brilliant as that of the stag just criticised, with
the exception, perhaps, of the foal which is lying down. As
in the previous subject, the artist has not attempted full
tonality, and the landscape is exceedingly slight.
Knight. The Peasant and the Forest, — One of the plates
in a volume called Etched Thoughts, published in 1844. It
may be noticed as a special variety of mistaken work. The
touches are innumerable, but they explain nothing ; the
labour has been unsparing, but it has led to nothing. The
man's gaiter, the bark of the tree and its section, are all exe-
cuted in the same manner ; there has been no selection, and
the consequence is confusion.
Drinking Song. — This etching was published in the "Songs
of Shakespeare." It is interesting to me as a sort of forerunner
of Unger*s work, which looks almost as if it were based upon
it See the study of Unger in the chapter on etching from
pictures.
In this composition, which keeps well together, the artist
commemorates the old convivial custom of clinking glasses,
now fallen into disuse in England, though still kept up on the
Continent.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHATTOCK AND GEORGE.
TV/TR. CHATTOCK'S earlier studies in etching were very
matter-of-fact and almost photographic transcripts of
simple nature, but as he persevered his work gradually became
less prosaic and more imbued with the sentiment of an
artist He is now one of the best etchers of landscape in
England. A specimen of his earlier manner may be found in
the Portfolio for May 1871, and if the reader will compare
that plate (" Bridge on the River Blythe ") with any recent
etching by the same artist, he will at once perceive in what
various gains of facility and force true progress in art consists.
The plate just mentioned is very truthful and honest work,
but the critical spectator perceives, at the first glance, that
the etcher has not yet begun to feel the power of the etching-
point, that he is trying timidly and carefully, and rather with
the seeking of the student than the decided volition of the
accomplished artist. A plate published in the Portfolio for
September 1873, which is criticised below, showed a surprising,
increase of power both in the use of line and in light and
shade, but the etcher was still evidently rather overwhelmed
by his own hard sense of fact, so that there was a superfluity
of literal truth. Since then Mr. Chattock has published a
series of illustrations of Eton College and its neighbourhood,
which retain all that is needed of the substantial qualities
gained by his painstaking early literalism, but exhibit a much
more comprehensive sense of natural beauty and a finer feeling
for art. The ability displayed in this little series of etchings
2 A
354 CHATTOCK AND GEORGE.
led me to think that Mr. Chattock would succeed in etching
from pictures, so he undertook for the Portfolio one of the
noblest landscapes by Gainsborough in the National Gallery.
The picture, in all its great qualities, was strongly opposed to
Mr. Chattock's earliest manner, yet such had been his advance
in art that he thoroughly shared its grand and solemn spirit,
and rendered it with so much skill that it is difficult to
imagine how it could have been rendered better.
Mr. George is an architect who having been accustomed
to make sketches during tours undertaken for study, conceived
the idea that he might make etchings from some of them and
publish them together in a volume. He has published two
such volumes up to the present date, the first entitled " Etch-
ings on the Moscl," the second, " Etcliings on the Loire."
Each contains twenty plates, remarkably equal in quality,
and preserving so much of the freshness of a first impression
that if we did not know they had been done through the
medium of studies we should at once infer that all of them had
been etched from nature on the spot. On the whole, the second
scries is better and more interesting than the first, good and
interesting as that was. Nothing can be more honest and
genuine than the work in all these plates ; there is no attempt,
in any of them, to pass off the result of accident as the result
of art, evcr^'thing clearly is what the artist intended it to be ;
and this absence of affectation is carried so far that, although
some little bits of drawing here and there may appear ama-
teurish or even puerile, the artist has the courage to leave
them and expose himself to some degree of misunderstanding
rather than spoil the freshness of his plates by correction.
The principle on which they arc executed is simplicity itself.
The serenity of the sky is always represented by white paper,
the imagination of the spectator being left to supply whatever
gradation may be necessary. Clouds are lightly indicated
with a few lines, pale in tint and free in execution. Distances
are lightly sketched, but more shaded than clouds, foregrounds
CHATTOCK AND GEORGE, 355
are often powerfully bitten, and between foreground and
distance there is an intermediate region where both deep and
shallow lines are used together, or one over the other, as
required. The only fault that can reasonably be found with
Mr. George's execution is rather too much scribbling here and
there, especially in foregrounds. However, many of the plates
are free from any objectionable scribble, and those in which
it occurs are still delightful in spite of it.
R. S. Chattock. " When Rosy Plumelets tuft the Larch!*
— A plate published in the Portfolio for September 1873.
The subject looks as if it had been found just as it is, in some
commonplace part of English country. We are on the borders
of a wood, but it is merely a wood, without any of the
grandeur of a forest, and a rail-fence goes across the whole
subject To the right is a bit of open field with sheep.
Between the trees is a small bridge of a single arch, but there
is no distance except this, which is not remote. Winter has
not yet given place to spring, the branches being without
leaves, but the " plumelets " of the larch are visible.
The plate is very effective as a strong piece of realistic
study, full of a very decided kind of truth. The work, how-
ever, is rude and northern in temper, giving you perfectly the
sensation of nature and bringing you within the very odour
of the larch-branches, yet not conveying any impression of
artistic beauty. You are simply by the wood-side, amidst
trunks that a wood-cutter might estimate quite accurately, and
there is nothing in this vigorous northern naturalism to remind
you of artistic sentiments and traditions.
Boveney Lock (" Sketches of Eton "). — The difference be-
tween this plate and the preceding one is not great in truth
to nature, for both are as true as they need be, but here we
have more decided artistic power. The clump of trees in the
middle near the lock-house is in fine broad light and shade,
making a noble mass, whilst its depth of local colour is fully
356 CHATTOCK AND GEORGE.
preserved. The flat land on each side of the river is skilfully
though slightly treated, and so is the distance, but nothing in
this plate proves the artistic power of the etcher so much as
the perfectly judicious management of the sky and the water.
It is a bright but cloudy day, rather showery, with glimpses
of blue sky, and the artist has conveyed the impression of all
this as completely by free point-sketching, not very deeply
bitten, as he could have done by the most patient engraving.
The water is quite a model for the wise use of line for ripple,
and of thin dry-point tinting between the bitten lines for
reflections.
Monkey Island. ("Sketches of Eton.") — A particularly
clever piece of lowland landscape with water and poplars.
The reflections in the running water are simply and powerfully
drawn. In this plate Mr. Chattock uses to great advantage a
technical resource which is very familiar to him, that of em-
ploying thick lines and thin ones in the same place to get
transparency, the thin ones acting very like a glaze in
painting.
The College from the River, (Sketches of Eton.) — One of
the richest and most brilliant etchings in the series. The
college buildings look exceedingly grand, with all their turrets
and battlements, and the manner in which the rippling river
just recognises them all in broken reflection is quite a lesson
for a student of landscape. The lighting is unusual, for the
front of the building is all in shade, and the sunshine only
catches the roof, and the low trees, and the grass between the
college and the river, but the cficct is excellent, and all the
better in this instance that it enhances the impression (which
is the true one) of a grey, old building, darkened with the
gloom of centuries, situated in the midst of the ever-renewed
freshness of nature.
Ernest George. Trier, the Market Plaee, Fountain,
and Rothes- Hans. — I will leave Mr. George himself to describe
CHATTOCK AND GEORGE. 357
the subjects of his plates, and then add a few sentences of
criticism. After speaking of the decline of Trier he con-
tinues—
" There is, however, life and activity in the large market-
place, from which our sketch is taken. A handsome Renais-
sance fountain forms the foreground. As we saw it at harvest
time the figure surmounting it had in its arms a sheaf of
newly-reaped wheat which shone golden against a blue sky.
Market women were busy around it with their large baskets
of blooming fruit. Fantastic gables and high roofs enclose the
lively scene. Foremost of these old buildings is the Rothes
Haus in our picture with its steep slate roof and its carved
gables down the street It is built of the red iron-stone on
which the city stands. It was once the Ratshaus, but is now
the comfortable hotel at which we stayed."
The two principal things in the etching are the house
just mentioned, and the fountain. In the foreground are
market-women with their baskets of produce. The fountain
is skilfully drawn, but rather over-bitten in the blacks, the
market-women, baskets, etc., are just of the quality we find in
the old woodcuts of such subjects in the Penny Magazine —
no better, no worse, but the drawing and shading of the old
Ratshaus are to my taste very refined and delightful. The
building is all veiled in a delicate semi-transparent half-tint^
the light slanting down across it and catching the battlements
beautifully.
Schloss Elz, View of tlie Celtic approaclied frofn Garden.
" Winding down a richly- wooded valley, we have all al once
before us the marvellous group shown in our sketch. Schloss
Elz is rising out of the lofty rock, round which the stream of
the Elz makes almost a circuit. Here is the most delightful
cluster of towers, turrets, and gables, dormer windows and
bartizans, making a broken outline against the sky."
Schloss Elz looks so much like the fancy of some artist-
poet that one has a difficulty in believing it to be real. Mr.
358 CHATTOCK AND GEORGE.
George has drawn all the upper part of the castle admirably
well, having evidently enjoyed the roofs and turrets as they
deserved, but he has not fairly drawn the rock on which the
castle stands, nor the bushes on the rock. Stronger* work
here would have benefited the plate considerably.
Angers. Hdtel de Pinch. "We show in our etching a
white stone palace of the Renaissance period. This pic-
turesque ch&teau has been miscalled the Hdtel des Dues
d'Anjou, but there is no evidence that those magnates ever
crossed its threshold. It is a princely dwelling, and was
erected by Pierre de Pinc6, one of a family in high favour at
the court of Francis I. The house is a characteristic example
of the buildings of a time when a broken and Gothic outline
was preserved after the introduction of pilasters, cornices, and
classic mouldings. The circular projections corbelled out
from the wall are favourite features in the work of this period,
and turret-stairs, as well as oriel windows and balconies, were
made to serve the architect in his scheme of light and shade."
This is a very beautiful example of the best qualities in
Mr. George's system of etching. Instead of the black opaque
blotches of printing-ink which do duty for shadows in vulgar
work, the shadows here arc pale and luminous with reflection,
and rich in interesting detail, as they were probably in the palace
itself. Another thing which pleases me very much in this kind
of drawing is the reliance which the artist so wisely places on
very slight markings and distinctions. The outlines of the
palace against the sky are, on the lighted side, so faint and thin
as to be barely visible, yet the slightest unnecessary heaviness
in these lines would have gone far to destroy that aspect of
aerial elegance which lifts the buildings© much above the level
of prosaic architecture. Yet although there is much delicacy
in this drawing there is no weakness. All construction is
thoroughly understood and fully explained. Ever>' important
* I do not mean blacker work, but drawing with more meaning, drawing
representing substance more decidedly.
CHATTOCK AND GEORGE.
359
detail of pilaster, cornice, and moulding, every changing direc-
tion of wall-surface is made quite clearly intelligible, although
it may not be drawn with the minuteness of the photograph.
Amboise, the ChAteaii and Bridge. — " Amboise, one of the
most quaint and charming spots of France, and a favoured
haunt of her kings, rises on a rock left of the Loire. It is
approached from the north by two massive bridges, whose
many arches span the shallow waters of the Loire, and of its
tributary the Amasse, which joins it here. High roofs stiU
cluster beneath the castle, though many old houses were
cleared away by Louis Philippe. At the angles of the rock
are huge round towers, most of them now roofless.
One of the best instances amongst these etchings of a
pleasant and mellow general effect The bridge is in deep
sliadow, the light only Just catching the parapet and tops of
the cut-water piers. The castle-eminence to the left, with
the trees above it and houses below, is also massed in shade,
but the chateau itself and the houses on the river-shore to the
right are in full sunshine and beautifully lighted. All this
fine material is treated quite in the temper of the true etchers.
No single ])icce of detail is more than sketched, and if you
take any separate thing, such as one window, one chimney,
one little figure by the shore, it will seem to you but slight
and careless work if you have not rather large conceptions of
art, but all these details are subordinate to the general
arrangement of the subject, whicli holds together with a per-
fection of unity very rare in modem etchings of such material.
In fact there is as much unity in this plate, and as mellow a
feeling for all that constitutes breadth and repose in art, as
there could be in a picture by some tranquil-minded painter
in love with the calm beauty of this royal dwelling by the
Loire, and forgetful of that dreadful day when from that
castle hnlcoTiy the young Mary Stuart saw its waters laden
nth more tJKiii a thousand Protestant corpses just freshly
r 1>eautiful eyes.
1
ETCHING AND ETCHERS.
BOOK V.
THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING
AND
COPYING IN FACSIMILE.
CHAPTER I.
THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING.
FLAMENG, LAGUILLERMIE, RAJON, WALTNER, BRUNET-
DEBAINES, GAUCHEREL, MONGIN, WISE, LE RAT,
JACQUEMART, UNGER.
nPHE recent history of etching offers this remarkable sub-
ject of reflection, that the art is now mainly employed
for a purpose not generally foreseen at its revival, and quite
outside of its earliest uses in the hands of the greatest old
masters. They used it because it was the most convenient
means for multiplying the precise expression of their own
ideas, and when the art was revived by painters in the nine-
teenth century, it was with the same intention. It is not
very many years since Flameng was the only engraver in
Europe who studied etching with a perfect faith in its power
to interpret pictures, and even he had given sufficient labour
to the burin to use it like a master. The example of the
greatest etchers of the past, so far from encouraging the idea
of interpreting pictures, tended always in the direction of
original work. Rembrandt, it is believed, never once etched
from a picture ; his plates are as much the independent out-
come of his genius as his works in oil, and each plate stands
by itself, whether slight or elaborate, as the sufficient and
unique expression of one thought of the master. An artist
gifted with any fecundity of invention has rarely the patience
to execute his works twice over, first in oil and afterwards on
copper, and it is only the professional engraver who can find
364 THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING,
in the interpretation of works by other men an interest and
stimulus sufficient to sustain him through such labour for
many years. When painters etched it was seldom from their
own pictures, still less from pictures by other artists. If they
thought it desirable to prcser\'e some memorial of the works
which left their easels, a slight sketch on paper, with a wash
of shade, was enough to recall the picture to the memory, and
ensure, as in Claude's Lider Vcrifatis, its identification by
future purchasers. The time required to etch a picture satis-
factorily would in itself have been a decisive objection, but
besides this there was not until quite recently any great
accumulation of general experience about the best methods of
interpreting brush-work with the etching-needle, so that there
was hardly anybody in Europe who quite knew how it ought
to be done. If, then, it had occurred to a painter to keep a
record in etching of the pictures which he produced, he would
probably have confined himself to a simple memorandum in
line, done on the principles of a pen-sketch, without any
attempt to imitate handling and texture. Such a memor-
andum would have had its use, but could not, in the nature
of things, have conveyed to others anything like a perfect
conception of a picture which they had never seen.
The modern art of etching from pictures intends to go
very much farther than this, and does indeed, in skilful hands,
succeed to a degree which may well surprise a critic who is
thoroughly acquainted with the difficulties of the process.
The facility with which the etching-nccdle is handled in com-
parison with the difficulty of the burin, and the fact that it
is held in the fingers exactly as a brush is held, instead of
being pushed like the burin, are indeed greatly in the etcher's
favour, but the difficulty of getting accurate light-and-shade
by the use of acid is as much against him. In etching of a
simpler kind, when the lines arc \cry decided and well sepa-
rated, partial failures in biting are not fatal to the quality of
the work, for the quality in line-etching depends upon the
THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING, 365
amount of knowledge and feeling which is put into the line,
and even when the line is bitten too much or too little, the
knowledge and feeling originally put into it are still quite
clearly visible. But in shading, which is nothing but shading,
the case is altogether different. Here, if the tone is wrong
everything is wrong, and the tone depends almost entirely
upon the biting.
The general result of modern etching from pictures has
been this. Some wonderful things have been done, and
much that has been done is very satisfactory to painters, who
are unquestionably the best judges of a matter of this kind.
On the other hand a great deal of really bad and vile work
from pictures has been published, and is yet published in
steadily increasing quantity, work for which no true critic
either of etching or of painting would consent to be held
responsible. Etching from pictures has in fact become a
regular business, and many artists have taken to it as a
resource when painting or engraving with the burin did not
bring a sufficient income. It is almost impossible to earn an
income by original work in etching, even for the most gifted
geniuses, but there is always a demand for the reproduction
of pictures in various forms, and it so happens that publishers
and their customers have perceived that etching can do this
with effect. The etcher has indeed many advantages on his
side when he interprets certain kinds of pictures. His range
of light and dark is as wide as it can be ; he can follow the
oil painter down into his lowest tones, even to the obscure
depths of gloom in the darkest old masters, and he can at
the same time fully suggest the brilliance of the fairest com-
plexion or the lightest costume. Persons who have never
studied the subject are very apt to imagine that the scale of
the different kinds of graphic art is much the same in all
cases, since they all have black for their lowest note, and
white for their highest, but this conception is very imperfect
and inaccurate. Compare etching, for example, with any one
366 THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING.
of the numerous photographic facsimile processes which are
made to print typographically along with printed text, the
blackest black which can be got by this surface printing is
grey in comparison with the depth of the etcher's blacks, and
at the same time the thinnest line in the photographic fac-
simile is thick and heavy in comparison with the faint lines
which an etcher can draw with the sharpened needle or dia-
mond point, so that he has the advantage at both ends of the
scale. Besides this, as we have already observed, a skilful
etcher has a great range of different textures at command, so
that he can follow the painter pretty closely in the suggestion
of surface quality, much more closely than the burin could
possibly follow him. The needle is not a brush, and yet the
more visible the brush-work is the more easily the etcher can
explain to us how the painter used his instrument, for he
enjoys just as much liberty as the painter himself, and where-
evcr a hog's bristle has left a marking he can imitate it The
same facility with the point, and the fineness with which it
can be used in drawing, make it an excellent instrument for
the rendering of expression. Its superiority in this respect is
so marked, that some of the most eminent etchers from pic-
tures, when left free to choose their subjects, have willingly
interpreted painters who, like Franz Hals, made expression
an especial study.
In estimating work done from pictures, the reader is re-
quested to keep constantly present in his mind two principles
which arc independent of each other, or nearly so, and which
when reduced to practice are found to be complementary of
each other, the principle of imitation and the principle of
interpretation. In working from nature the imitative prin-
ciple is a very dangerous one to admit without the most
jealous control, for when allowed to reign unopposed, it utterly
paralyses all the higher artistic faculties, but in working from
pictures the case is altered, and the etcher should imitate as
much as he safely can, even to the very touches if possible.
THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING. 367
The reason for this difference is obvious. In working directly
from nature the model is simple nature without the interven-
tion of any human feeling, and if the artist were simply to
imitate in his studies, there would be no human feeling in
them whatever ; but when we have a picture before us the feel-
ing of the painter has already fully provided that human ele-
ment which is essential to a work of art, and there is little
necessity to superadd a second human element from the
mind of the engraver. Whenever, therefore, the engraver can
accurately imitate the original painting, it is right for him to
do so, but there are times when such imitation is not possible.
There is much in painting which can never be imitated in
etching, but whenever the copyist perceives that he has to
confront one of these difficulties, he has always the resource
of interpretation which, far from making his work less admir-
able, is likely, if well done, to give it a higher and more inde-
pendent interest The two things may embarrass a young
student, but every experienced artist or really cultivated
critic will at once perceive the clear distinction between them.
The best etchers from pictures imitate and interpret by turns,
just as it seems best to them, and are equally at home in
both. Rajon, for example, will imitate the black velvet of a
burgher's doublet in some old Flemish picture, till the imita-
tion has almost precisely the quality of the original painting ;
but when he comes to Turner's Teiniraire he resorts boldly
to the most frank interpretation, and suggests to our imagina-
tion the subtle tones which he cannot set before our eyes.
Armed with these dual powers, there is nothing in painted art
which the etcher may not justifiably attempt
Since etchers who work from pictures endeavour to ac-
CQmmodate themselves as much as possible to the manner
and feeling of the painter, it follows that their own personal
style is often merged and lost in that of the picture before
them, so that it is not easy to define the qualities of an etcher
from pictures, as we have been defining those of the original
368 THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING.
etchers hitherto considered in this volume. The reader will
at once perceive the difficulty ; I for my part have felt it so
much that I find it impossible to say much of these etchers
personally without attributing to one of them, as a distinction,
qualities which others have in an equal degree. For example,
as an original etcher of still-life, Jules Jacquemart acquired a
power so peculiar to himself that his plates were recognisable
at the first glance, like some original and familiar signature,
but since he has begun to work from pictures, many plates
have appeared by him, which, if his name were not attached
to them, might easily be attributed to another artist, even by
an accomplished critic, well acquainted with Jacquemart's
manner. There are plates by Flameng, Rajon, Waltner, and
others, which it would be just as difficult to recognise as their
handiwork. It is not easy, nor would it be right, for an etcher
to supersede, by a mannerism of his own, the mannerisms of
the different painters he interprets, but there is another reason
which has of late years caused a very definite loss of person-
ality in the etchers who copy pictures. A certain body of
general executive experience has formed itself, and is now a
common stock belonging equally to all who have thoroughly
mastered the art The younger men try to acquire this as
quickly as they can, and the cleverest of them succeed in doing
so very rapidly. They usually come to the art with the ex-
perience of a student who has gone through the regular con-
tinental education in painting, so that they know a good deal
about the qualities of painting, and a moderate degree of
application suffices to make them perceive the value of the
common methods of interpretation or imitation with the
etching-needle, which they at once adopt A young man so
prepared by previous general education in drawing and paint-
ing may soon become a clever etcher from pictures if he has
good abilities, and if he has fine taste and sensitive feeling,
with a naturally delicate hand, he may do really admirable
work in a few years. But this rapidity of progress in our
THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING. 369
younger contemporaries, is due especially to the fact that the
way has been made plainer for them by the pioneers, especially
by Flameng. What occurred in the earlier part of this century
in landscape engraving has now occurred in etching, especially
in figure-etching from Dutch pictures — a definitively best way
of doing things has been discovered and is already traditional.
We need not value the art less for this. An art may
render useful service which is not the outcome of personal,
individual genius. The engravers who interpreted Turner, and
interpreted him on the whole so astonishingly well, were a
school which had its methods in common. Take the volume
of the " Rivers of France " and try to guess who engraved
each plate, without looking at the engraver's name in the
corner. Those plates were done by twelve different engravers ;
can you recognise them by their work } No, you cannot ; the
book is so homogeneous that it looks as if the designs had
been all engraved by one person. Exactly the same methods
of interpretation are employed throughout. And yet what
consummate skill ! — what admirable precision in dealing with
the most subtle distinctions of tone in those skies and water-
surfaces of Turner ! Here is a kind of engraving which, without
being personal, since twelve men could do it, is still most use-
ful and valuable, for it has rendered with exquisite delicacy
the work of a great genius, and multiplied it by thousands.
So it is already with this modern art of etching from pictures.
It is not the new invention or discovery of every etcher who
uses it, it is now very generally an acquired " business," and
yet its results may be well worth having.
Since, however, the etchers have so much in common, I
shall not give them separate chapters as I did to the original
men, but shall select for mention a few of their most important
works.
Flameng. The " Night Watch;' after Rembrandt— It is
evident that in this ambitious and important plate M. Flameng
2 B
370 THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING.
has determined to give to the world a striking example of his
mastery as an etcher, and I was therefore the more surprised,
when the work first appeared, by an obvious fault in tonality,
the all but total loss of modelling in certain blacks where it
ought to have been distinctly visible. The central figure is in
full light; this is evident, for his extended hand casts a shadow
on his companion, and his advanced leg casts another upon
the ground ; the face and collar, top, are strongly lighted, and
yet the doublet and breeches are a black blot, in which nothing
is distinguishable except a few little buttons. There is abso-
lutely no form whatever in them. This solecism is so glaring
that it strikes one at the first glance, and I expressed my sur-
prise about it to the artist himself He wrote, in answer, that
the printer had overcharged the blacks in the printing, but also
that the picture itself is so loaded with dirt that it cannot be
properly seen, besides which it is hung in a little room badly
lighted — so badly, that the etcher could never have made it
out at all without the occasional assistance of a direct sunbeam.
Flameng believes that Rembrandt's intention was not to
paint a " Night Watch " but a daylight effect, and that this
will become evident if ever the picture shall be cleaned and
hung where it may be visible.
I have mentioned this in justice to the etcher. In every
other respect the work is a marvel. If the reader has the
opportunity of comparing it with any of the common engrav-
ings of the same picture (for example, the woodcut in Charles
Blanc's Histoirc dcs Pcintrcs), he will soon perceive the value
of Flameng's masterly drawing, especially in the expression
of the faces, which in a work of this kind is the chief thing,
the source of its human power. After that two other qualities
are to be noticed — the brilliant use of line on a white ground,
as in the shorter of the two central figures, the little girl, the
collar of the tall man in black, and elsewhere ; and in striking
contrast with this the soft, rich shading, especially of the large
clear obscure spaces in the background. If the student will
THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING, 371
follow out the many different kinds of shading employed in
this work, he will perceive that they form in themselves a sort
of music, with notes often purposely harsh for contrast with
the suavity of others. It is not surprising that a clever and
experienced workman should find out many different ways of
using the etching-needle, but it is surprising that he should be
able to reconcile such very opposite qualities till they all sing
pleasantly together in one harmonious masterpiece.
Flameng. UAbreiivoir^ after Troyon. — This plate was
published in the Gazette des Bcaiix Arts for June 1874. I
mention it in this place as a particularly good example of an
etcher's subordination to the painter he interprets. Not only
have we here the feeling of Troyon, his unpretending yet sub-
stantial draughtsmanship, and his simple yet effective scheme
of light and shade ; but we have also, at least for any one who
knows the painter, a striking reminder of his very brushwork.
In the sky and distance especially the etching-needle has
become a brush, and the very strokes of Troyon*s powerful
hog-tool are visible all over. So close an imitation of a
painter's manner is of more importance than some persons
may readily believe. It greatly helps to put us in unison with
his feeling. Such a picture as this would be robbed of half
its force if translated by some cold, mechanical engraver ; but
the lively sympathy of the etcher with the painter places us in
direct communication with him, till we quite forget paper and
print, and see the painted canvas itself.
Flameng. Francis the First and the Dnchess of ^tampeSy
after Bonington. — This plate was published in the Portfolio
for January 1873. The reader may have seen the original
picture in the Louvre, a very brilliant little gem of colour.
This plate is just as brilliant a piece of etching; indeed at the
time of its publication it was, I believe, the most accomplished
piece of work which, in that particular kind, had ever been
372 THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING.
produced The qualities most valued in modern painting
appear to be colour and texture (the most recent sales seem
to prove it more and more), with sparkle. This plate is all
full of texture and sparkle, with the suggestion of local colour
which black-and-white art can give. It is quite a typical
example of modern painting, with its little incident, its study
of costume, its exhibition of technical dexterity. M. Flameng
has thrown himself into the spirit of it as thoroughly as if he
had been the author of the picture. It has never seemed to
me that texture and sparkle were the highest qualities of art,
but the modern public delights in them, and here they are,
tant qiiil en voudra I
F. Laguillermie. A Divarf of Philip IV. of Spain^
after Velasquez. — This etcher has had the advantage of a
more extended artistic education than is common in these
times. He was taught engraving by Riffaut and Flameng ;
he is also a Grand Prix de Rome, and a painter. He has
gone through laborious studies in Paris, Rome, Athens, and
Madrid. I mention this particular plate, which was published
in the Portfolio for April 1873, as a fine example of a very
free kind of interpretation. Any one who knows Velasquez
will be very strongly reminded of him by this etching, and
yet M. Laguillermie has worked quite in his own way, with
strong sabre-strokes for shading, and not the slightest
attempt to amuse us by pretty textures. The plate is one of
my great favourites. The subject of the picture is deeply
interesting, as the following paragraph, which I wrote in the
Portfolio, will explain : —
" But there were differences amongst the dwarfs, which
Velasquez perceived with his keen, artistic intelligence, and
profound observation of mankind. One of them was merely
silly, another scowled hatred and envy from under his beetling
brows ; but this one, whose image is here before us, bears the
pain of a nobler suffering. O sad and thoughtful face, look-
THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING. 373
ing out upon us from the serious canvas of Velasquez, though
the grave has closed upon thee for two hundred years, we
know what were thy miseries ! To be the butt of idle princes
and courtiers, and, worse than that, to be treated by the most
beautiful women as a thing that could have no passion, to be
admitted to an intimacy which was but the negation of thy
manhood, to have ridicule for thy portion and buffoonery for
thy vocation ; and yet to be at the same time fully conscious
of an inward human dignity continually outraged, of a capa-
city for learning and for thought ! — all this was enough
indeed to drive thee to noble folios, that gave thee some sense
of human equality, some intellectual fraternity and con-
solation ! "
Rajon. Portrait of John Stiuirt Mill, after G. F. Watts,
R.A. — M. Rajon is one of the most productive of the modem
etchers from pictures, and at the same time one of the surest
He respects himself, and never issues slovenly or careless
work, which cannot be said of all his brethren. It is not sur-
prising that he should interpret the qualities of painting well,
for he is a painter.
Mr. Watts has painted many portraits which have de-
servedly taken rank amongst the most important pictures of
the age. It is almost a profanation to mention such art as
his, so full of intellect and earnestness, so serenely serious, on
the same page with the vulgar and brainless work which is
the every-day product of the regular portrait-manufacturer.
It is not necessary to define vulgarity in this place ; but I may
observe that if any one cares to possess what is the exact
opposite of vulgarity in portraiture, he may have it in this
noble etching from a noble picture. There is no idle flattery
here, no frivolous hiding of the signs of age, no lending of an
inappropriate gaiety. The tailor and hairdresser did not
determine the painter s work for him before he began it. One
purpose only occupied him — to paint worthily a human head
374 THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING.
that was worthy of being painted. Perhaps, indeed, and
here is the only criticism I feel inclined to make, the costume
and body have been /^^much sacrificed to the head; they are,
in fact, seen under different degrees of illumination. You see
as much of the body as you could distinguish in the gloom of
the latest twilight, but the face is in the ordinary daylight of
a room, in " a good gallery light," and every detail is visible.
Nor can it be fairly argued that the body is in shadow and
the head in light, as it would have been a great maladresse
to make the space of shade coincide so precisely with the
black costume as to create confusion between shade and
local colour. The flat equality of the dark background, in
which, at least in the etching, no gradation of any kind is
traceable, is also a mistake. It would be difficult to find, on
the dullest day, in the plainest room, a space so absolutely
without variety. The background and costume are both,
however, very cleverly etched, and the effect they produce is
like that of hearing two or three of the very lowest notes on
the double-bass. The depth of etching, in the lowest notes,
has seldom been more powerfully exhibited. The biting
of the coat is almost as deep as the bitings in Turner's
etchings.
The face is one of the very finest pieces of work ever exe-
cuted. Some people say that etching cannot render
modelling, and Mr. Ruskin says that it cannot represent
hair ; yet the modelling of this face is as thorough and ela-
borate as it could be in any kind of engraving, and the scanty
locks of hair, and thin whiskers, are rendered with a perfec-
tion of texture not to be denied. The whole face is inter-
preted by the most judicious use of line, but always for the
artistic purpose, never for mechanical display. All that is
done has for its object cither the plain rendering of physical
structure, or the expression of character. Physically, you
have a strikingly thorough study of bone, muscle, and skin,
the last even to its wrinkles ; intellectually, you have tlie
THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING, 375
thoughtful study of a thoughtful face, with the sadness that
remained upon it permanently after a great bereavement. I
can answer for the likeness ; all who remember Mr. Mill in
his latter years will recognise its extreme fidelity. It is well
that a portrait at once so artistic and so true should preserve
for our descendants the features of one of the few famous
Englishmen belonging to our age whom posterity is likely to
care about.
Rajon. Tlie Dutch Housewife^ after Nicolas Maes. — ^The
original picture was a great favourite of Leslie's. In his
Handbook for Young Painters, he says, ** There are few
pictures in our National Gallery before which I find myself
more often standing than the very small one by Maes, the
subject of which is the scraping a parsnip. A decent-looking
Dutch housewife sits intently engaged in this operation, with
a fine chubby child standing by her side watching the process,
as children will stand and watch the most ordinary operations,
with an intensity of interest as if the very existence of the
whole world depended upon the exact manner in which that
parsnip was scraped. It is not the colour and light and
shadow of this charming little gem, superlative as they are,
that constitute its great attraction ; for a mere outline of it
would arrest attention amongst a thousand subjects of its
class, and many pictures as beautiful in effect might not
interest so much ; but it is the delight at seeing a trait of
childhood we have often observed and been amused with in
nature, for the first time so felicitously given by art."
I think Leslie would have been pleased with the way in
which Rajon has interpreted the little picture. The etching
is charmingly simple in manner and very true in light and
shade. There is no strain or display in it anywhere. Great
artists, however, are great deceivers, and we should be inno-
cent indeed if we supposed that Maes and Rajon were as
guileless as they seem. The plain truth is that both picture
376 THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING.
and etching are full of subtlety and cleverness. The brilliantly
etched jug to the woman's right was not set there without
intention ; it corresponds to the head of the child, and so makes
that of the housewife central. The lighting is full of know-
ledge. The absence of all bravura in the treatment is in har-
njony with the homeliness of the subject The plate was
published in the ortfolio for December 1874.
Waltner. UAngclus, after Millet — I am sorry to have
to preface my notice of this etcher with a word of blame, but
he deserves it for being so unreliable. When he likes, he can
etch as well as anybody, but he may at any time produce
hurried and slovenly work incredibly inferior to his best I
must add that he is so very clever in the use of the dry point
and the burin that he very often resorts to them, so that the
most delicate parts of his work are engraved rather than
etched ; this, however, is not an objection when the burin work
is so ably done that it harmonises with what is bitten.
In this picture by Millet a man and woman are standing
near to each other and almost face to face in a vast and per-
fectly flat potato-field with a level horizon high up in the
picture. There is no other landscape than this, except that
the spire of a village church and a few trees and buildings are
visible on the horizon at a distance, but they are very small,
like the minute distances of Paul Potter. The man and
woman arc French peasants who have been loading a wheel-
barrow with potatoes ; both have left off working for an
instant, and are praying, the man with bowed head, the
woman with clasped hands, whilst they hear the village bell
tolling the Angelus. It is impossible not to feel the deep
sense of rustic devotion in this most impressive work. After
the long day of dull labour in that monotonous field, flat and
ugly as a desert, these poor people hear the sound of the
evening bell from afar and forget their toil in prayer. The
etcher has entered quite heartily into the sincere and earnest
THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING. 377
spirit of the painter, and has etched the picture with so much
good taste and feeling that the effect on the heart is quite
that of the original painting itself, and yet the slightest
mechanical ostentation would have at once destroyed it
People used to say that etching was hard and " scratchy " —
this plate is as tender as a charcoal drawing, and as true in its
light and shade.
Waltner. Dans la Rosie, after Carolus Duran. — A nude
figure of a young girl which had a great success in the Salon
of 1874. This plate. appeared in the Gazette dcs Beaux Arts
for June of that year. The nude, especially when of such a
subject as this, which requires the most delicate treatment, is
exceedingly difficult to deal with in any kind of engraving.
Readers who are familiar with the sort of prints which were
so much admired in the eighteenth century, when a profusion
of naked limbs of gods and goddesses were represented as
cushioned on rolling clouds, will remember how clouds and
thighs were alike seized upon by the engravers of those days
as pretexts for the exhibition of a certain skill in cutting clear
curves with the burin. Such treatment could never give the
natural texture, but was a negation and destruction of it In
the etcliing before us M. Waltner has treated the nude with
the perception and sentiment of a painter. It is like fair
living flesh, and not like the back of a silver watch ornamented
with eccentric tooling. The outline is so soft that the eye, in
trying to follow, is constantly losing and finding it. The
modelling is wonderful, considering how limited is the scale of
light and dark where shadow itself is fair like shaded snow.
And yet the lights tell forcibly enough although there is so
little shade to help them. All the rounding of the beautiful
limbs and body is got by very simple and facile dry-point
sketching, aided perhaps by the burin, but if so by the burin
used quite freely and artistically as an etcher may fairly
378 THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING
employ it.* The background of foliage and the foreground
of plants are all bitten, and so is the abundant hair.
Brunet-Debaines. Interieur de Cour en Italic, after
Decamps. — The original picture belonged to the Wilson col-
lection, and the etching was published along with many other
plates from that collection in 1873. The subject is simply a
picturesque courtyard, with rough walls, archways, and gal-
leries to pass from one house to another. There were great
opportunities, in a subject of this kind, for Decamps to enjoy
his singular powers of rendering rough textures, and also for
his strength of light and shade. M. Brunet-Debaines has so
completely reproduced the manner of Decamps in his etching,
that any one who, without knowing the original picture, knows
others of its class, by the master, will at once feel, after studying
this etching, that he has seen the picture itself. Rarely has
an engraver entered more completely into the tastes and
qualities of the painter he had to interpret
Brunet-Debaines. Ruined Castle on a Lake, after Al-
bert Cuyp. — It is by no means an easy thing for a good
modern landscape draughtsman, such as the etcher of this
picture, to go back to the landscape of the seventeenth century
and throw himself into it quite heartily. The qualities of such
a painter as Cuyp reside much more in pictorial harmonies
than in any great knowledge of nature. There is so much in
this picture which to an educated modern must seem poor —
almost young-lady-likc, if I may say so without offending
both connoisseurs and young ladies at the same time — that
one may very easily overlook its two great merits of repose
and beautiful lighting. I was delighted, when the first proof
was sent to me, with the etchcr*s absolute forgetfulness of
* The burin has always been considered a permissible auxiliary tool for etchers.
It is very useful in that way, but, unless in skilful hands, dangerous to the harmony
of the work.
THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING. 379
himself and his own knowledge in perfect subordination to the
painter. This is Cuyp absolutely, with his clear simple land-
scape, inartificial arrangement, and bright yet quiet afternoon
sunshine. The plate was published in the Portfolio for April
1874.
Gauciierel. The Avenue, Middleharnis^ Holland, after
Hobbema. — A most successful rendering of the curiously
clear, quaint, and stiff landscape of Hobbema, now so much
in fashion both amongst artists and connoisseurs. It is dif-
ficult to point out parts as especially worthy of commendation,
but I mention with pleasure the remarkably clear quality of
the sky and the distance, not because they arc better done
than the trees or the road, but because the risk of failure in
them was much greater. {Portfolio, October 1874.)
Gauciierel. Tkc Sun of Venice going to Sea, after
Turner. — It is a matter of the most extreme difficulty to
translate Turner in etching, and it can only be done at all
by the boldest interpretation ; yet it so happened that all the
French etchers who have hitherto been employed by the pro-
prietors of the Portfolio in the National Gallery immediately
became enthusiastic admirers of Turner, and eagerly desired
to etch after him. This plate by M. Gaucherel is not quite
accurate in details, and it hardly tries to imitate at all, but it
conveys, I think, a very good idea of Turner's poetical con-
ception, and recalls the picture very strongly to the memory,
with its emerald waters, gaily-coloured sails, and dazzling
white distances. {Portfolio, November 1874.)
MONGIN. UEstafette, after Meissonier. — A superior
officer of mature age is standing with his back to the fire,
smoking his pipe, and holding in his hand a letter just re-
ceived from the cstafette, who is standing opposite — a thin
man in cavalry uniform, booted and spurred, with a carbine
38o THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING.
slung behind him. Between these two, at a greater distance
from the spectator, sits a younger officer in cavalry uniform,
with his right arm resting on a table, the hand holding his
pipe, which he forgets to smoke in his anxiety to guess from
the expression of his superior's face the nature of the intelli-
gence just received. The costumes are those of the eighteenth
century, and so is the furniture of the room.
Every one knows with what thorough study and accuracy
of finish Mcissonier always presents the details of his figures
and their surroundings, what a master he is of imitation, and
how careful he has generally been to select subjects which
permitted it The present work is a striking example of the
paintcr^s qualities, and a still more striking example of the
closeness with which a skilful etcher may echo the work of a
painter, though the echo is but in black and white. Let us
first do full justice to M. Mongin in the much higher study of
expression, let us not forget that the faces are of chief import-
ance here, and that they arc rendered perfectly. We have
the imperturbable look of the old general who reads the letter
(you may guess about as much from his visage as from his
pigtail), the rather wearied and anxious look of the younger
officer, and the half-inscnsiblc but disciplined and military
profile of the estafcttc himself, who keeps up his soldierly air
though harassed by fatigue and want of sleep. This dramatic
interest is, however, soon exhausted, for we are aware that we
can never know the contents of the letter ; if we were in the
theatre, the actor would read it aloud to us, but this painted
actor is dumb and cannot even change his attitude, he must
stand for ever, as he is standing now, with booted legs wide
apart, in the attitude of the Colossus of Rhodes, and however
weary the messenger may be he can never quit this presence.
But such is the nature of pictorial art that when the interest
of the subject is exhausted, that of the skill with which it
has been represented remains. We follow, in imagination,
the artist as he works, and are delighted by the triumphs of
THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING. 381
m
his hand. There is plenty of such technical interest in the
remarkable plate before us. The versatility with which the
etching-needle is made to imitate the appearance of different
substances — marble, glass, leather, wood, cloth, fur, etc. — and
the accuracy of shading and biting which gives their exact
relative values of light-and-dark, are in themselves interest-
ing to a student of art. If the reader had the plate before
him, he would perceive how many different kinds of treat-
ment the etcher has adopted to get the different qualities of
things — deep bitings and shallow, close lines and open, sharp
accents and soft shades. I cannot see how Meissonier's
picture could have been engraved more accurately with the
burin even as to relative values of light-and-dark, but I
know very positively that no burin-work could ever have got
this variety and truth of texture, nor could it have followed
so closely the minute points of drawing on which much of
the fidelity of the translation into black and white depends.
Wise. The Triumph of Scipio, after Mantegna. — This
plate was published in the Portfolio for January 1874, and
was the first of the National Gallery series. The original
work is a tempera design in chiaroscuro — a long frieze, of
which only a portion is given in the etching. I mention it
here as an instance of successful interpretation. It is not
really an imitation of Mantegna's work, but a bold and
powerful translation of it from the language of tempera into
that of a simple sort of etching. You see at a glance what the
work is, for no artifice conceals the strokes of the point, but
you would have a difficulty in guessing the exact nature of
Mantegna's painting, if you were not acquainted with it. In
spite of what has been said in the last few pages about the
imitation of texture in working from pictures, I do confess
that a certain independence on the part of the etcher is by no
means displeasing to me. This need not prevent him from
expressing the clearest understanding of the picture before him.
382 THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING.
Le Rat. Portrait of Leonardo Loredano, Doge of Venice^
after Giovanni Bellini. — ^This is an uncommonly beautiful
piece of engraving, but whether it is quite fair to speak of it
in a book on etching may be doubtful Let us take it as a
text for a short sermon about the transition from etching to
engraving. The etcher has generally a burin or two and a
few dry points amongst his tools, the latter, perhaps, sharpened
like burins with triangular sections and cutting edges. When
the biting has not done all that was expected from it, the
artist may feel indisposed to take the trouble of regrounding,
so he works with the burin a little, or a sharp dry point of
hard steel After having done this often, he insensibly
acquires considerable skill, and is more and more tempted to
do it again. Finally this engraved work covers so much of
his plates that, as in the present instance, it is equal in
importance to the bitten work. Go a step farther still in
this direction and you have the acid employed merely to fix
a light design used for guidance, whilst the serious business
of the performance is entrusted to the graver. Some etchers
from pictures are now going so much in this direction that
there is a chance of their becoming real burin-engravers ulti-
mately. The plate before us was begun as an etching, and
then engraved upon till it reached its present condition of
high finish. Let me not be supposed to insinuate anytliing
against it, for it is an exquisite piece of work, which ought to
have satisfied both the Doge and grand old John Bellini if
they could have seen it. {Portfolio, January 1875.)
Jacquemart. Repose, after Berghem. — This and the
following plates by Jules Jacquemart were published by
Messrs. Colnaghi in a series from the Metropolitan Museum of
New York. The artist prepared himself for this task and
others of a similar character by the study of effect in etching,
instead of pursuing his marvellously successful studies of form
and texture in objects of still life. I well remember that
THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING, 383
when this transformation began Jacquemart sent me a cer-
tain attempt in his new direction, which convinced me that he
was what Mr. Ruskin would call "a lost mind," and that
those terrible words about an English artist were applicable
even unto him — "The change in his manner is not merely
Fall — it is Catastrophe ; not merely a loss of power, but a
reversal of principle : his excellence has been effaced, ' as a
man wipeth a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down/ "
Meanwhile Jacquemart worked on in his new manner,
and the end and outcome of it was that he became able to
etch very well from pictures. I am not sure that the world
is altogether a gainer by the change, for this artist's original
etchings from beautiful or precious objects of still-life were
what nobody but himself could do ; whereas, however well he
may interpret a picture there are several other men in Europe
who can do as much. One or two of his plates are certainly
very superlative work, but a good many others do not rise
above the ordinary level of professional production. We
have, therefore, by this change, lost an artist of singular
genius, to enrich by the addition of a single name the list of
clever men who can translate pictures in an accomplished
professional way.
This plate after Berghem is, however, very far from being
commonplace. I had not supposed, when it appeared, that
etching could go so far as this in the imitation of a painter's
manner, and the peculiar success of it opened to me a most
interesting field of speculation and of hope. Photography in
its various forms renders touch with admirable fidelity, but
then it is grossly unfaithful in the interpretation of colour by
Hght-and-dark, and produces the wildest confusion by this
unfaithfulness, even in light-and-shade itself. On the other
hand, line-engraving cannot at all render the touch, of the
picturesque painters ; it is perfectly suited to the interpretation
of the classical schools, but just as ill adapted to the more
informal manner of modern naturalism. The burin requires
384 THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING.
tranquil spaces, the etching-needle can easily follow broken
surfaces and ragged outlines. This we knew, but the novel
element in this plate from Berghem is the successful imitation
of luminous quality in the touches. In work of this kind the
touches glisten like dewdrops ; they are not paint, but an
artful assemblage of jewels. I wonder what Jacquemart
would make of the glitter in a dewy Constable ; he would
give it, I believe, with an unprecedented fidelity. Another
reflection which occurs is, whether Berghem could have etched
his own picture in this rich pictorial manner. We know
what his manner was in his etchings — brilliant enough, but
neither pictorial nor rich.
A close examination of the workmanship in this plate
reveals so much of its secret as is dependent on method
merely, and not on sensitive interpretation. The lines are
never laid without great care for their tonic value ; and so
soon as any line, however short, however apparently necessary
to the delineation of form, would interfere in the least with
the tonic value of the painter's touch, it is suddenly abandoned,
and an empty space left to tell the rest of its story. Treat-
ment of this kind is as consummate, technically, as etching
can be. The line is used quite frankly everywhere, and there
is no attempt to hide it ; but, on the other hand, the artist is
never carried away by it, not even to the extent of the thou-
sandth of an inch. The entire absence of that tightness of
manner which very young artists often take for delicacy of
drawing, may possibly incline some of them to pass by this
work slightingly, as a careless sketch of landscape. Any one
of that opinion is invited, with due respect, just to copy the
face of the woman on its own scale.
Jacquemart. The Moerdyck, after Van Goyen. — The
sort of subject which Zeeman would have etched in his quaint
dry way, and it is highly interesting to observe the effects of
Jacquemart's wider experience. Zeeman evidently enjoyed
THE INTERPRETERS OF FAIN7ING, 385
light, and space, and movement ; but he had no richness, no
unction, if I may use the word, nor did he understand fine
arrangements of chiaroscuro. This etching from Van Goyen
scarcely contains more lines, if they were counted, than one of
Zeeman's plates, and yet the difference of arrangement and
of manner makes this plate opulent and glowing. An ignorant
etcher would have given a month of useless labour without
getting either the light or the movement of these rolling
clouds, or the smoothness of this calm water. There is nothing
here but the bare etched line, as frank as possible everywhere,
and yet the varied employment of it, to any cultivated spec-
tator, suggests everything of the picture but its colour.
Though this is a merit of the painter's, let me add that the
composition of this sea-piece is as subtle and cunning as the
composition of a simple subject possibly can be. The concen-
tration of light in the middle, by the golden cumulus and its
reflection, the indication of perspective by the two lantern-
poles on the sandbanks, brought purposely near in the picture,
and contrasted in their leaning, the arrangement of the ships
and boats, all in pairs (a common practice with Turner also,
but not, as we see, invented by him) ; the smoke on the distant
sandbank and its reflection marrying earth to heaven and
water by a little central cloud — all these things, and more
that I have not space to enumerate, prove the most thoughtful
artistic intention. Even the cannon-smoke from the ships of
war has its pictorial purpose ; it gives clouds close to the
water, and these clouds help the light, for that against the
focus of the picture is very much lighter than the other.
Jacquemart. Interior of a Dutch Cottage, after Willem
Kalf. — At the first glance, a critic half experienced in etching
might fancy that this plate had been very imperfectly bitten,
and that the etcher could not draw things clearly; but he
would be much mistaken, for it is one of the cleverest in the
whole set. The subject is the obscure interior of a cottage,
2 C
386 THE INTERPRETERS OF PAFNTiyG.
with an effect of dull daylight through an unseen aperture of
some kind. The play of imperfect light, the passage firom
light to obscurity, have been rendered by the painter with
great care, and the one effort of the etcher has been to make
things dear just to the degree which the painter intended, and
no farther. On the part of Jules Jacquemait this must have
needed especial self-denial, for it so happens that there are
many things in this picture which, if left to himself, he w*ould
have drawn far more brilliantly than the painter. To publish
an etching of this kind is certainly a very high compliment to
the art-culture of this generation, as it is rather strong meat
for babes ; but we are bound to praise the forgetfulness of
self and the simplicity of purpose in faithful interpretation of
the picture, which are e\'ident throughout this work. An
uneducated public would see nothing in it — ^would not even be
able to make out the objects which are indicated by chiaro-
scuro simply without any explanatory design, a touch of lights
a patch of shade, a half-light, and a reflection. What is the
woman doing ? I know, but leave the reader to amuse himself
by guessing, with the observation that all northern readers
will inevitably guess wrong.
Jacquemart. Portrait of a Young Woman, ^Itor Lucas
Cranach the Younger. — A very faithful and beautiful imita-
tion of a quaint portrait in the costume of the sixteenth
century, with a rich coif and necklace and a veil There is an
infinity of exquisite work in this etching, not only in the
richly-patterned dress and background, but in the delicate
pale shading of the flesh — a delicacy which adds much to the
force of the fine dark eyes and eyebrows. The face has a
serene, grave beauty of a very original type, and the expres-
sion conveys a mixture of tranquillity and firmness, implying
eminent domestic qualities. Beautiful as it is, however, this
plate may be taken rather as an example of the versatility of
etching than of its especial liberty and power. It is im-
THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING. 387
possible, and it would be wrong if it w^ere possible, to interpret
a severe and primitive painting like this with the go which
would be quite appropriate for an artist like Frank Hals.
Jacquemart's merit here has been to enter thoroughly into
the spirit of his original, and to bring to his work a delicacy
and right patience answering accurately to the feeling and
character of Lucas Cranach himself.
Jacquemart. Elisabeth de Valois, Reine (TEspagne,
after Sir Antonio Moro. — ^This was one of the most important
plates in the series from the Wilson collection. It is men-
tioned here for an especial reason. Elisabeth de Valois was
dressed as magnificently as possible when she was painted,
her costume was covered with embroidery and jewels. Here
then we have a complicated and not uninteresting study of
still-life, for the queen with her plain face and quiet pose is
really little more than a lay figure to carry all this etalage of
satin and countless pearls big and little, with great square
gems of ruby, sapphire, or emerald, an amazing elaboration of
royal finery. Jacquemart feels perfectly at ease amongst it
all, nay even enjoys it, instead of losing patience, as many
would He studies every separate pearl with its own light
and shade and reflection, he gives the sheen of satin and the
infinite details of the majestic millinery ; for such study as
this is half a return to the labours of his earlier manhood.
Unger. Jcime Couple dans leur Salon^ after Gonzales
Coques. — Before considering this particular piece of work let
me make a few general observations about William Unger's
talent. It is difficult, in an age which has produced half-a-
dozen artist engravers of the very highest rank, to say which
of them is king ; but if any critic were to give the supreme
station to Unger he might maintain his decision by the argu-
ment that this artist has etched more plates of uniformly good
quality than any one else, whilst a few of his finest works,
388 THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING.
taken separately, will bear comparison with the finest of those
other distin^ished interpreters of pictures whom we have
already studied in this chapter. In one power he certainly
surpasses every one of them, namely, in the critic's gift of
sympathy with very different kinds of talent It does not in
the least signify what an original artist, who never translates
the work of other men, and who never writes about it, may
think of his rivals in this or any other age. The reader would
be much astonished if he could learn how much ignorance and
prejudice are perfectly compatible with a successful artistic
career. But when an artist undertake^ to interpret the work
of many who differed in mental faculty and in technical
training, both from himself and from each other, he must
either enter heartily into their ways of thought or else grossly
misrepresent them. He then requires that rare gift of a good
critic which enables him to enjoy opposite kinds of work, and
to admire them with such perfect sympathy that for the time
being each may appear right and sufficing in its own order.
Ungcr has this in perfection. I will answer for it that he
must be a very delicate and discerning critic of painting, that
his intelligence must be comprehensive and his appreciation
just. The mass of his etchings, taken together, are, in fact,
a commentary on many great painters, which, instead of being
written out in words, is drawn on copper with the point
Throughout it Ungcr speaks to us as clearly about the
pictures as Vosmacr, the distinguished critic, when he writes
Dutch or French. To possess these etchings is much less, no
doubt, in a general sense, than to possess the original pictures,
but there is a certain special, yet very intelligible, sense in
which it is somewhat more. We have here much of the
painter, but not all ; we have also something in addition, and
that is the intelligent explanation and commentary of an
observer who well knows what is admirable, and what is
personal and peculiar, in the executive expression of the great
painters whom he interprets.
THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING. 389
The picture before us, one of the most charming and
interesting representations of domestic life in the seventeenth
century which have been handed down to us, represents a
young gentleman and his wife in their small but tastefully
arranged drawing-room. The walls are covered with tapestry
to the height of the door, and above the tapestry are hung
Dutch landscapes, rather too high to be studied, but good as
panels for the decoration of the room. The lady is standing
at her open clavichord, the lid of which shows on the inside a
sylvan landscape with musicians. The gentleman is gravely
seated by the table turning the leaves of a book. On the
table are a globe, a statuette, and an hour-glass. There is an
indescribably charming air of learning, discretion, and artistic
taste in the whole scene. It seems to us that life must have
had true dignity, peace, and sweetness under these conditions.
And now please observe how absolutely Unger throws him-
self into this grave and quiet temper, and with what unhurried
sobriety every touch is laid ! We shall see him in other
tempers before we leave him.*
Unger. Paysagc Montagncnx, after Rembrandt — This is
one of the most complete of Rembrandt's landscapes, and a
very fine and majestic composition it is. There is a river in
the foreground with a windmill to the right, a bridge of one
arch crosses the river, and a horseman is riding towards the
bridge. In the distance is a hilly country with trees and
some ruins.
* So far as we may judge by the etcher's portrait of himself on the title-page,
which by the way is one of the most consummate bits of free etching produced in
modem times, it appears as if his own personal feeling were not only very dif-
ferent from that of the etching described in the text, but even strongly opposed to
it. Unger's (nun manner w^ould be light, facile, and intelligent almost to excess,
but by no means distinguished for gravity or sobriety. That portrait of himself is
done in an excellent spirit for an etcher. The drawing is sound and strong, with-
out the least trace of any sort of pedantry, and the ease of it, which is the result
of real power and knowledge, is truly marvellous.
390 THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING.
The study of minute detail which pre\'ailed in the Eng-
lish school some years ago is likely to make us unden^ue
the qualities of such landscape-design as this, which relies
entirely upon mass ; but if the reader takes delight in the
fine artistic arrangement of masses he will enjoy this land-
scape much, and be verj' thankful to Unger for the quiet truth
of tone with which he has rendered it The picture would
not be difficult to copy in charcoal or sepia, but it must have
been extremely difficult to etch, for it all depends upon tonic
relations, and if they had gone wrong in the biting the plate
would have been without meaning, for it has no strong
expressive lines to help it. Unger has rendered it in the
most unobtrusive way, and all has come just quietly right,
even to the palest tints of the distance and the sky. How
grandly Rembrandt has placed his ruin and supported it !
Unger. Buste de Fcmmc^ after Rembrandt — The lady
shows one hand, her left, which is gloved and holds a flower.
She wears a necklace of large pearls.
This is not one of the most striking plates in the series,
but it is assuredly one of the most perfect. The face is
treated with the greatest delicacy, and yet witli consummate
ease. Observe the thoroughness of the skill and knowledge
with which the reflections arc rcser\*ed. The texture has the
softness of flesh, and that of the costume and background is
vigorously opposed to it. Unger has entered so well into
Rembrandt's spirit that we recognise the great master at a
glance.
The eyes of this portrait are charming in their softness.
I think Unger has made the hair a little too wiry and coarse,
but the coarseness of texture in the dress is very valuable.
The glove is inevitably ugly, for in tliosc days nobody
thought of such a thing as a glove that would fit the hand.
Unger. Lc Dormcur, after A. Van Ostade. — A cobbler
is sitting asleep in a little corner close to a wooden partition.
THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING, 391
He rests his head on his left hand, and has a very happy
look on his face as if his dreams were pleasant. Perhaps a
pot of beer may have aided in procuring this felicity.
The etching is very remarkable for its spirit of independ-
ence. It does not look as if it had been done from a picture
at all, but quite conveys the impression of a fresh and spon-
taneous invention of the etcher himself. Considered on its
own merits it is one of the very best etchings I ever saw ; the
work is so straightforward, simple, and expressive.
Unger. Rati Calme, after Willem Van de Velde the
younger. — The painter of this picture, which is now in the
gallery of Cassel, was only twenty years old when he exe-
cuted it, but few artists, however experienced, have so com-
pletely rendered the spirit of a scene. I mention it here,
however, chiefly to direct attention to the excessive delicacy
and self-restraint of the etcher in his interpretation of it
There is no attempt to copy the palest tones, but they are
just hinted at, and we imagine them. The picture is in a
very high key, a very light sky is reflected in calm water, and
white sails come against this in full sunshine. The only
darks are the hulls of the vessels. Unger has contented him-
self with making us understand how light are the prevailing
tones, giving the forms of cloud and sail by drawing of
ineffable delicacy almost without shading. I strongly
approve of the judgment and taste with which this has been
done. We feel the light that there is in the picture much
more by this treatment than if an attempt had been made to
render the pale tones quite accurately, supposing (what is
very probable) that they would have been a little put wrong
in the biting. The fact is that this etching is a masterpiece,
and one of a very peculiar kind, which some younger etchers
who are breaking their hearts in struggles after perfect tonic
accuracy would do well to study. Such work as this saves
health and eyesight by intelligence.
392 THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING.
Unger. Portrait (THomme^ after Tintoret — This is the
portrait of a young Venetian nobleman, perhaps twenty-seven
years old, or so, but nothing seems to be known about the
original except what may be gathered from the picture itself.
It is one of the grandest and most impressive portraits in
existence. The dark face — of the deepest Italian complexion
already, and looking like bronze when set upon that large
white frill — is high up in the corner of the canvas to your
right. The left hand of the portrait is hanging by his side,
gauntletted in a great leather glove ; the other, also gloved, is
placed upon a table. The costume is that of the sixteenth
century, but dark, grave, and without an ornament The
attitude is erect and soldierly, but the main power of the
work lies in the expression of the face. The eyes are like
coals of fire. It may be doubted whether such another pair
of eyes exists in all the world of painting. When once they
have looked at you, no farther explanation of the man's cha-
racter is necessary. There are portraits of the thoughtful and
melancholy kind, which have awakened an unceasing curi-
osity, but this would excite fear in a timid person, and resist-
ance in a bold one. What a haughty scrutiny there is in that
glance, and in those lips what iron resolution ! This young
lord of Venice, whoever he may have been, was one whose
passion a woman might dread, and whose enmity a brave
man might think twice before incurring. Laws and civilisa-
tion have in our days so quelled the fire of individual natures
«
that we can hardly realise the time when passionate men
were as dangerous as volcanoes ; but there are a hundred such
in Italian histor>% who were not better neighbours than
Vesuvius.
Meanwhile wc have forgotten Hcrr Unger, simply because
he has done his work so well. Only one thing needs to be
said specially about the etching, and it is this. — Some plates
can produce their effect on the mind with little tone, but this
one positively needed the darkness of the costume, and the
THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING. 393
darkness of the face ; the impression on the mind is partly
due to it
Unger, Portrait d'un Chanoine^ after Antonis Mor Van
Dashorst. — This is one of the finest of the serious portraits in
Unger's portfolios. It is almost entirely in dark tones, and
the etcher has not succumbed to the temptation of enlivening
them by sparkle here and there, as a common engraver would
certainly have done with such a piece of work before him.
The dignity and sobriety both of the original painting and
the reproduction are, in their way, beyond praise. There are
no touches of light even on the eyes, and the small frills
about the neck and wrists are so much shaded that they do
scarcely anything to relieve the general gravity of tone. The
canon's countenance has the same gravity and seriousness,
but without any hard severity. He looks charitable, but not
inclined to familiarity. Charitas liabenda est ad ontftes, sed
fainiliaritas non expedit.
Unger. Hail, Fidelity I also designated Sir Ramp and
his Mistress, after Franz Hals. — A more striking contrast in
both temper and execution than that between the picture
just criticised and this one could not be imagined From
dignity and sobriety to their exact opposites seems a distance
not easily to be traversed ; yet as Unger could be grave with
the learned canon of Antonis Mor, so he can be jolly with this
merry gentleman of Franz Hals. It is not simply that the
faces here are gay, whereas the other was serious, but the very
touch of the point is changed. Hals had great dash and
decision in his handling, and a peculiar sort of flickering
brilliancy, which was due to his way of rendering surfaces
whenever he could by facets, and to his excessive taste for
strong accents. It was essentially a vulgar conception of
form and surface, but it had much — too much — vivacity. In
this vivacity the technical manner of Hals corresponded
394 THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING.
admirably with the sort of subject which he generally pre-
ferred; so that he had one of the greatest merits an artist can
have, namely, a perfect harmony between mind-work and
hand-work. The painting here is full of dash and go. The
subject of the picture is a roystering blade in the height of a
merry hour, his glass raised high, his face beaming with
laughter and the spirit of loud jollity, whilst nestling under
the huge plume of his prodigious hat is the merry visage of a
woman, not pretty certainly, but able, as it seems, to enter
into the gentleman's frame of mind The most respectable
personage here is the dog whose head appears in the comer.
This is the sort of life which Franz Hals lived, and this is
how he painted it Anything more spirited than Unger's
translation of the picture it is impossible to imagine. All the
life and vigour of Hals are reproduced in it
Unger. Franz Hals and Lysbcth Rcyniers, his second
wife, after Franz Hals. — This is quite mild and respectable in
comparison with the other, but there is merriment here too.
The painter is seated under a tree in a garden with his wife.
Both are laughing heartily, and she has her hand affectionately
on his shoulder. The absence of a wine-glass seems an
unaccountable omission. Let us hope tliat the artist has
inward satisfactions arising from recent and sufficient potations.
He looks as if he had.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Hals are most respectably dressed in
black cloth and black silk, and their linen is elaborately got
up — not a little matter in those days of huge frills, and cuffs,
and collars. I mention the etching chiefly for the ease and
simplicity of its execution.
Unger. The Gcrccmors of the Asylum for Old Men in
1664, by Franz Hals. — In this picture the artist does all he
can to be serious, yet nevertheless puts a twinkle of merriment
into the face of an old man in the background, as if he were
irreverentially laughing at the worthy Governors.
THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING, 395
The execution of this etching is an extreme instance of a
sort of work which Unger resorts to, particularly in interpret-
ing Hals, but which, considered in itself, is not to be much
commended The whole of this work is in facets, and each
facet is shaded flat Here there are four distinct tints of flat
shade, but no gradations. The love of angles and facets is
carried to an extraordinary excess in the badly-fitting gloves.
All this may be an accurate imitation of a strong mannerism
in the painter, but it would be a very bad mannerism in any
etcher who adopted it as a style of his own.
Unger. Cephaleet ProcriSy after a picture supposed to be
by Guido Reni. — It is the closing scene of the legend. Procris
is lying wounded in the forest, and Cephalus is touching the
fatal dart as if about to remove it
I have selected this plate as a proof that Unger is not
bound down to the objectionable manner adopted in the one
last mentioned. This picture, whoever painted it, is done in
the mature Italian style, with full rounded forms, a great deal
of modelling, and (of course) a thorough study of gradation.
The landscape is rich and quiet, and put in with very fine
taste indeed. No one could guess that the same etcher had
executed this plate and those from Franz Hals ; and I do not
believe that there is another engraver in the world who has,
to anything like the same marvellous degree, the faculty of
adopting at will styles which are not only unlike each other,
but as strongly opposed as possible. Observe the careful
study of flesh and the consistent preservation of local colour
in the fair woman and the dark man, without loss of modelling
in either.
Unger. Les Quatre Vacfies, after Paul Potter. — ^This
plate is not very striking at first sight, and the reader may
easily pass it by when he first turns over the etchings of
Unger, for it is neither black nor powerful. Nevertheless, it
is a singularly excellent example of a true etcher's way of
396 THE INTERPRETERS OF PAINTING.
interpreting rather than imitating a picture ; and I suspect
that Unger himself must have been fully aware of its merits,
for I see that he has (very allowably) put his signature con-
spicuously in the upper corner to correspond with that of
" Paulus Potter " in the lower. Potter was a mere boy (only
nineteen) when he painted the picture, and there is really not
very much refinement of drawing about it ; but it is easier in
manner than the work of young men usually is, for there is
not the least strain or tightness. This facility has been
rendered very happily by a corresponding facility in the
etcher; indeed it is a better etching than Potter would
himself have made of the same subject, for he was always
rather hard in manner as an etcher, though he drew well and
distinctly. If the reader has access to the plate, let him
observe the admirably slight treatment of the sky, on which
no vain effort has been wasted, and the open work of the
foreground.
There is a great deal of artist-craft both in Potter's
management of this very simple material and Unger*s inter-
pretation of it Four cows, a little old tree, a bit of fence, a
little common rough pasture ground, and in the distance a
tree or two, such as you may find anywhere — this is all ;
and yet out of these materials the young Dutch genius con-
structed a picture which is a picture, and not a mere study as
so many are. He knew how to make the most of his material.
Such a work as this ought to be a consolation to artists who
live in unpicturcsque localities. The materials of art are
everywhere, the makers of art are not so common.*
• A few words of praise are due to the spirited publisher, Mr. Sijthoff of Ley-
den, for the manner in which tliesc etchings of Unger have been published. They
arc printed on fine Dutch paper, and mounted (pasted by the upper etlge only^ on
sufficiently good boards, in such a manner as to enter into the most carefully
arranged collections without farther change. They are accompanied by a text
printed with the greatest .taste on very fine Dutch paper. The only objection I
have to make to the publishing of the set from old masters is that there is a diffi-
culty of reference. The plates are numbered, it is true, in the comer of the
boards, but there is no corresponding number in the printed text, so that the title
THE INTERPRETERS OF FAINTING. 397
of the plate is not readily found In the other publication from Franz Hals, this
is managed better. The title is well printed in red ink on a fly-sheet which
accompanies each etching. I observe that Mr. Sijthoff has three classes of impres-
sions of the Hals series — artist's proofs on old Dutch or India, selected proofs on
India paper, and prints, which put the price of each etching at 7s., 4s. 6d., and
2s. 6d., respectively. On the other hand, the series after various old masters is
printed in one class of proofs only, and issued at a price which puts them at rather
less than 2s. 9d. each. Considering the expense of text, covers, and portfolios,
and the cost of printing, mounting, and advertising, with the deductions of agencies
abroad, this is most reasonable ; and Mr. Sijthoff deserves our thanks for placing
works of real art, thoroughly well got up, within the reach of cultivated people
who have moderate incomes. I see that M. Vibert is having his pictures etched
by different etchers under his own superintendence, and that the series is to be
published in parts of ten plates each, at £,2Q the part, or ;f 2 each plate. Of
course every one has a right to charge what he Ukes for his own merchandise, but
I have already expressed regret that the circulation of works of art should be arti-
ficially limited by excessively and unnecessarily high prices, intended to give them
a fictitious value as rarities. In the* case of large plates which cost great labour,
such as a few of the most important by Flameng, a high price is an inevitable
necessity if the artist is to live by his work, but it is a necessity to be regretted
both in the interest of the public and for the artist's fame. One great difficulty is
the enormous trade percentages. I have known more than one instance in which
publishers charged fifty per cent merely as agents, and left the etcher to pay all
expenses of printing and advertising. M.' Flameng is trying to avoid this by tak-
ing subscriptions at his own house (25 Boulevard Mont Pamasse, Paris) for two
new plates of his, after Rembrandt — La Le^n cTAnatomie^ and Les Syttdics, He
prints three classes of proofs at ;f 8, £fi^ and ;f 4 each. Raj on published his por-
trait of Stuart Mill at five guineas for artist's proofs, and two guineas for proofs
after letters, but this was issued through the usual channels. There appears to be
a demand for early impressions ; but if the reader cares for artistic quaUty, and is a
judge of it, he will value impressions simply for their merits, whether early or late.
Unless in the case of drypoints, or etchings much retouched with drypoint (the
bur being left) the five-hundredth proof may be just as good as the fifth, and will
be better if the printer has been more lucky with it. A sufficient price ought always
to be charged to allow the printer to give plenty of time and care to his work, and
to destroy every defective impression. This is really important. The utmost care
should be taken about paper, too, but this need not make etchings costly, for a
sheet of the finest paper costs very little.
I much regret that Mr. Seymour Hadcn's very important plate after Turner's
Calais Pier, a plate measuring a yard square, is not yet published (June 1875), so
that I cannot speak of it in this edition of my book. It will, however, in all pro-
bability, need no help from criticism. A great press has been built on purpose to
print it, paper has been manufactured specially, and costly real sepia has been pro-
cured from the Adriatic for the printing-ink.
CHAPTER II.
ON COPYING ETCHINGS IN FACSIMILE.
T T is an excellent but at the same time a most severe and
irksome discipline, to copy etchings by great masters in fac-
simile. This may be done either by a student of the art for his
own instruction or by an accomplished master in order to popu-
larise noble works which in their perfect states are so rare as
to be inaccessible to all but a few of the most wealthy collectors.
The technical peculiarities of the old masters can never be
quite thoroughly understood by us until we copy them, and
the act of copying is a continual revelation, but the patience
that it requires is unimaginable so long as we have not tried
it. Young engravers with the burin are trained in the use of
their supremely difficult instrument by a discipline of this
kind, and although the etcher aspires to more freedom and
originality of manner, he may do wisely, at a certain period
of his career, to imitate their teachableness and forgetfulness
of self, in order to study, line by line, the means of expression
by which the immortal masters have given their genius to the
world. Such work whilst it lasts is slavery, and to some
utterly unendurable, but whoever can compel himself to
undergo it will come out of it with tripled strength.
Line by line, I have just said, for in this close application
of the copyist every line becomes a separate study needing a
distinct effort of observation and another distinct effort of
manual imitation.
There is not space in this volume to say much about the
copyists, though some of them have done marvellous feats.
COPYING ETCHINGS IN FACSIMILE. 399
Many copies are so exact that collectors have to be carefully
on their guard against them. There is an etching by Rem-
brandt, of a beggar seated on a little hillock, which has been
so cleverly copied that Bartsch says it is difficult for the most
accomplished connoisseur to distinguish the imitation from
the original, and he has to show how it may be done by a
little difference in an insignificant mark which in the copy is
like an i joined to an w, whilst in the original it is like the
letter n. We must leave these details to more voluminous
writers, and confine ourselves in this place to the study of a
single example, which, however, shall be a notable one.
Flamen^s copy of tlie Hundred-Guilder Print — The illus-
trations etched by M. Flameng for M. Charles Blanc's Cata-
logue of the works of Rembrandt have long been familiar to
every student of the art, and we have known for years that M.
Flameng could copy Rembrandt with a degree of life and
truth which left little to be desired. Still it is probable that
the elite of the European art-public were not quite prepared
for the great technical triumph which M. Flameng achieved
in the year 1 873, He produced a copy of one of Rembrandt's
most difficult and complicated etchings — a copy which, if we
balance one quality against another, certainly far exceeds the
most perfect photograph in accuracy, whilst at the same time
it possesses as a piece of execution in etching all those
technical merits for which Rembrandt himself was famous.
In fact, this performance entirely confirms what I said of
Flameng several years ago, that he can overcome any techni-
cal difficulty which Rembrandt himself could overcome ; and
it is not an exaggeration of the truth to affirm, that there
exists in Europe in our own day a man who may be said to
possess the hand and eye of Rembrandt, though not that
force of imagination which was the source and motive of his
energy.
It may be difficult to convey to the atechnic reader that
full apprehension of the wonder of such work as this, which
400 COPYING ETCHINGS IN FACSIMILE.
will seize upon every etcher when he examines it In a certain
sense, and for some peculiar reasons which will be given in
support of the assertion, it may be boldly affirmed that, as a
technical performance merely, such a copy as this is even
more wonderful than the original plate itself. There is a
freedom from restraint in all original artistic labour which is
not compatible with the duties of the copyist, and yet at the
same time the copyist has to play his part so perfectly as to
seem not less free in thought and hand than the original
artist whom he is imitating. Rembrandt may get a shade, in
the biting, paler or darker than he intended it, but who can
point out where his idea was imperfectly realised ? — or even in
the drawing of a form a line may fail to correspond quite
accurately to his thought, and yet no critic who ever lived
discovered the secret of that failure. The freedom of original
art is due to the impossibility of comparing the work of the
artist with that which it professes to represent ; but the copyist
knows that the vcr>' first thing any one will do when he has
the opportunity, will be to put his copy side by side with the
original and test it by two comparisons — one for the general
effect and the other for every detail. Hence, in selecting a
work to be copied, we must remember that the more ease and
freedom there is in the original performance the greater will
be the difficulty of imitating it, and so true is this that painters
cannot copy their own sketches. It is easier to write a thing
for the first time freely in our own handwriting than to copy
our handwriting in facsimile. A child could make a labyrinth
of scrawls in a quarter of an hour which the most skilful
draughtsman could not reproduce without great care and
labour, and a considerable expenditure of time.
Now it so happens that this Hundred-Guilder Print offers
every conceivable difficulty to the copyist It is a piece of work
in which great freedom of manner is united to an extraordinary
delicacy both of line and tone, and no copy can be successful
which docs not render all tliose delicate lines and tones with
COPYING ETCHINGS IN FACSIMILE. 401
complete fidelity, whilst preserving to the full at least the
appearance of that freedom which Rembrandt really enjoyed,
but which in the copyist is nothing but the most consummate
acting. It is in a certain sense more difficult to copy an etch-
ing in etching than to engrave a picture which the engraver
may interpret as he chooses. Here there is no choice; what-
ever the master did the copyist must do after him.
The process, too, offers the peculiar difficulty that the
artist does not sec his work during its progress, except at
occasional intervals, when the etching-ground is removed from
the plate, and a proof taken between one state and another.
Then he has to draw every line in reverse ; and though he is
aided by tracing-paper and the mirror, this is still a very seri-
ous inconvenience. And for the intensity of his shades he is
dependent upon an auxiliary, which is proverbially difficult
to manage, and capable of unexpected treacheries — the
acid.
There are passages in a work like this which put to the
severest test the capabilities of the executant, because if you
cannot conquer them at the first stroke you cannot conquer
them at all. There are faces which do not contain more than
a dozen lines, and upon the exactness with which these are
placed depends the whole expression of the countenance.
Let the hand tremble never so little, and its uncertainty will be
at once transferred to the copper in the weakness of a false
and ill-regulated line. Although Rembrandt was prodigal of
lines in transparent shades and half tones, he was most eco-
nomical of them when he pleased him to dcssincr an trait, and
the copyist has no choice but to use a like economy. Now
when the expression of a face, perhaps the face of the most
important personage in the composition, is entirely dependent
upon the correct and skilful drawing of one stroke, which in
many such cases cannot be done slowly, and cannot be done
twice without effacing it entirely from the copper, the reader
will at once perceive the degree of surencss of hand and eye
2 D
X.-2
C€^PYJ7Cf^ LTZHSy-ZI JX JATSTIO:!!.
-1*;* 2£ Zi£dS:?irv 3',C L !■
:c
--1-
iii
Eror:?-
1-^V
fe— •—
• ..'^^
iiTs Tm: r:»:-j- d:c i~ri
zr2^ IS tJjt cicc»tr i: v
-- . ^ >■ A.
J*.
2xLT^ -crm -vies:
ivt ZnTt^z. ri'-r-^v iJirzc£:rL2». re cfi tJl
22 CX-t:Cirt^CCL 3S&nv ^TTL-LttriirS Jl^Vi; 2.^Zf srt'^.r' >C£C ^** '"'"-*>--
csducatioa- and l§ indeed at liis z:::nf:zt cze « lie best TxitEd-
.« • ■ • a •« « •• • • a ^
tJiat exterj;:on ci a =c:r::u= :r.terjs: :r. etcr.ir.g ■ivnic.'i :s one of
the TT-OhX itri/::";; cviccr.ces cf the increase- •: i artistic <n:Itt:re in
Eurr^T^e. It ir s. r;tth:r.^- f:,r a great er.gravLT ::> fee', and know,
when he er.'a-es in £u:h an enterrrlse as this, that in ever\'
capita! in the civi'.ised -.vcrlc there are at least a few inte!Mjent
and cj]tivated persons by -.vhom he will be gratefully and
immediately appreciated. This is not the sort cf work which
the \'ulgar have ever cared fc-r. and they may be left to their
showy jjrints ; but it fortunately happens that tlie cultivated
COPYING ETCHINGS IN FACSIMILE. 403
public is now just numerous enough to encourage any serious
artist who has the taste and skill to satisfy it.
The value of a copy, in a case of this kind, is greater than
might be supposed. A fine impression from a fine copy is
nearer to the thought of Rembrandt than an impression taken
directly from one of his own coppers when they had been
worn by too much printing. A fine impression from a plate
etched by a copyist who can etch, is far nearer in quality to
the original work than any photographic reproduction ever
can be ; and beside this, copperplate printing is much more
regular and reliable than photographic printing, so that the
satisfactory proofs in an edition are likely to be far more
numerous. The photographic engraving on metal, for which
several different patents have been taken in England and on
the Continent, overcomes this last objection ; but in those
processes so much has to be done by biting and correction
that the risks of failure are considerable. A good copy, by
an artist who is technically equal to the master he has to
render, and who is in perfect sympathy with him, and repro-
duces him as a labour of love, is still, notwithstanding all
modern discoveries and inventions, the next best thing to a
fine early impression from the original plate itself. Were it
not that the self-sacrifice required would be almost super-
human, and the task so fatiguing as to deaden those very
sensibilities which are essential to its successful achievement,
one would be tempted to desire that M. Flameng should
re-engrave the entire ceiivre of Rembrandt. He has preferred
to etch on a large scale several of Rembrandt's most import-
ant pictures — a task in some respects less onerous and more
interesting than this, since the etcher has been left free to
interpret according to his personal taste and feeling.
Few plates of Rembrandt illustrate so completely as this
one the various and very different qualities which in their
union have given him his supreme rank as an aquafortist.
The finish of the shading, true and right finish — very far
404 COPYING ETCHINGS IN FACSIMILE.
indeed from " niggling " — is as remarkable on the one hand as
are the sureness and selection of line on the other. The
chiaroscuro is arbitrary, of course ; Rembrandt's chiaroscuro
usually ivas arbitrary, and it would be easy to point out
impossible lights and shadows. But, whatever Rembrandt
had a mind to do, that he did in the most efficient and masterly
manner. If he wanted a shade to be liquid and transparent,
it became merely so much partial darkness, and you see
through it just what you ought to see and no more. If he
intended a form to be well defined, it will be clearly visible at
the right distance, though the means used be of the slightest
If he wanted a light to sparkle, it became luminous like a
jewel. But enough of these teclinical considerations. The
technical craft is useful — it is even indispensable ; but its best
employment is to lead us beyond itself to some thought that
may lift up our hearts. There is one pale, plain grave face in
the centre of the composition, surrounded by a nimbus of dim
glory, which is more affecting in this earnest northern art than
in the stately design of Raphael.
ETCHING AND ETCHERS.
APPENDIX.
PRACTICAL NOTES.
CHAPTER I.
THE PL A TE,
Since the first edition of this book was .published I have written a little
work especially on the subject of processes, which is called The Etcher's
Handbook* That work includes descriptions of many different processes
which have been found to answer by different artists, and if the reader
cares to follow out all the various paths by which a good artist may arrive
at a technical success, he will find most of them indicated there. In the
present volume I shall confine myself to a description of two processes
which I have found to be practically the most certain and convenient,
and which have been used in the illustrations that accompany these
pages.
Etching remains, in all essential particulars, precisely the same art as
it was in the days of Rembrandt. Its manual difficulties and facilities arc
precisely what they were then in the artistic portion of the work, and
when a plate is finished it presents exactly the same appearance as a
copper by one of the old masters. Several very important improvements
— important, I mean, as they concern the practical workman, but not of
the slightest consequence to anybody else — have, however, been intro-
duced in what may be specially called the work of the laboratory. The
object of these is to make the technical business more easy and agree-
able, and to bring it more entirely under the control of the operator.
Some experienced artists, in whom the traditional spirit is strong, and
who have attained their skill in the old ways, reject these improvements
altogether. M. Martial has recently published a treatise on etching
which simply repeats the old methods without even a word of allusion to
any newer ones, but the reader is not recommended to carry the conserva-
tive spirit to excess in an art which is half a science, and in which the
scientific spirit is really helpful. The great tradition of etching is not
affected in the least by these improvements of the laboratory, for drawing
with the point is precisely what it was before, but the scientific and purely
* It is published by Mr. Charles Roberson of 99 Long Acre. I may mention
for the convenience of the reader, that Mr. Roberson supplies eveiylhing necessary
to etchers, and I will take care, also for the reader's convenience, that everything
mentioned in this section of my work shall be visible in its material shape at Mr.
Roberson*s. Letters have frequently reached me complaining that this thing or that
viras not procurable in the shops, and it would be a pity if the enthusiasm of anyone,
with a natural genius for etching, were to cool for want of proper material supplies.
4o8 APPEXDIX.
mechanical part of the work has been undeniably much improved during
the last few years, as the reader will soon gather from the following
pages.
If you get your plates from any good English makers you will seldom
have any trouble on account of their quality. I have been well supplied
by Mr. Wilson (Harji Alley, Shoe Lane, E.C.), and also by Messrs.
Hughes and Kimber (West Harding Street, Fetter Lane, E.G.).
The chief defects to be guarded against are excess, deficiency, and
inequalities of density. A plate good for engraving is homogeneous and
sound in substance ; a bad plate is often either too hard or too porous,
or both. After some practice the etcher may learn to test a plate in two
ways, either by engraving a few lines upon it with a burin, or by leaving a
few drops of diluted acid on its surface, and, after having washed them
away, examining the roughened surface they have left with the help of
a microscope. If the burin is used, the noise it makes will tell the ear,
and the degree of opposition will tell the hand, when a plate is too dense
to be of use, or when there are inequalities of density. The test by acid
informs the eye when the grain of the copper is irregular ; this cannot be
detected on the polished surface, but is seen easily when the acid has
removed the polish and shows the real grain of the metal.
Hammer-beaten coppers are preferred to rolled coppers, and an ex-
perienced artist wrote to me, " When you order your plates, always order
them to be extra-hammered."
It is well to order special attention to be given to the bevelling of the
edges. If the plates are printed upon certain kinds of paper they will
break the paper if they are not properly bevelled, and when the printer
sees this result he reduces the pressure on his roller to avoid it, the con-
sequence being weakness in the proofs. See that your bevelled edges
arc well polished, so that they may print clean.
Copper is the only unobjectionable metal for etchers. Brass is un-
equal, and is never used for anything artistic. Zinc is a very porous
metal, but for rather coarse and picturesque sketches it may sometimes be
preferred. I believe Jeanron used it for his rough sketches. Fonnerly
the great objection to zinc was the small number of proofs which it
yielded, but this is now overcome by electro-metallurgy. A zinc plate
cannot be steeled, but it can be coppered, and with this protection will
yield an edition. Zinc may sometimes be useful to amateurs who desire
a small number of proofs to give to their friends, even without the coat of
copper, and then it is a ver>' cheap metal to use. Sketches done in a
simple way, without much delicate shading, as, for instance, caricatures,
may be just as good on zinc as on any other metal, but it is not suitable
for finished work.
Steel was more valued for etching formerly than it is now. It was
valued because it yielded large editions. A copper plate can now be
covered with a very thin coat of steel by the electro-type process without
injuring the artistic quality of the design, and the protected copper will
also yield large editions. The copper plate can also be </^-stcclcd and
THE NEEDLE, 409
r^r-steeled several times, so that there is really no longer any reason for
etching on steel, and there is one most serious objection to it. One can
never trust a steel plate out of sight without anxiety. People arc so
careless, even about the most valuable property, that they can seldom be
trusted to take care of things that rust easily corrupts. A very valuable
steel plate, by an eminent engraver whom I knew, was so entirely
destroyed by rust that the idea of publishing it had to be abandoned.
When copper plates are steeled we are still exposed to the rusting of the
steel coat through the carelessness of printers, but this is nothing in
comparison with the other danger, for though the rust may eat through
the steel coat it will not attack the copper, and the only inconvenience is
the slight expense of having the plate steeled over again. A short bath
in weak nitric acid and water will entirely remove the injured steel coat
without hurting the plate.
CHAPTER II.
THE NEEDLE,
Anything in the shape of a pencil with a hard point will do for an
etching-needle. Steel is the material usually employed for etching-points.
They are very commonly set in wooden holders. The whole instrument
may be made of a single piece of steel. In that case it should be kept
thin from the point to the place held by the fingers, or else the eye would
be inconvenienced by it, for in doing fine work a thick instrument
troubles the draughtsman by always hiding some portion of the work that
he desires to see. It is a convenience to have the instrument in a single
piece, because when set in wood in the ordinary manner it becomes shaky
in time, if much pressure is used. Weight is not an objection, but the
contrary, for although an etcher's work must look as if his hand were
light, he must never draw very lightly in reality — if he did, the point
would not entirely remove the etching-ground. It might be sufficiently
cleared away to show the copper, yet not entirely cleared away, so that
the acid could not attack the copper equally. This is especially likely to
happen to inexperienced etchers, because they retain from the practice
of some other art, such as pencil-drawing, the habit of varying their pres-
sure, and when they want to etch some delicate passage they instinctively,
and without reflection, press too lightly.
When the etching-needle is sharpened to a fine point, it may easily be
made so heavy that if loosely held between the fingers the mere weight of
it will remove the ground sufficiently, but with blunt points which are used
for thickerlines an instrument weighing 50 grammes is not heavy enough
to remove the ground without being aided by pressure. We have there-
fore to keep up the habit of applying pressure in all cases.
A heavy needle may be sharpened at the two ends to different degrees
41 o APPENDIX.
of sharpness. In this case it may be made thicker in the middle to gain
weight.
For work of great delicacy sewing-needles may be used, set in a metal
holder and held firmly in it by a little screw. They ought not to be thin,
nor long enough to be very flexible, as when too weak they are difficult to
draw with accurately.
It is these common sewing-needles, set in a holder, which are used
when working in the acid, as the reader will see in the account of my
positive process.
The needle ought always to be strong enough for the etcher to scratch
well into the copper itself without stopping merely at the surface, for if
he stops at the surface he may not be sure of remox^ng the whole of the
etching-ground, even though it seems as if he did.
There has always been some diflference of practice amongst etchers
about the sharpening of the needle. Some like it to come to a point (or
to a flat blunt end for the thick lines), others like it to have a cutting
edge like the end of a small chisel. There is a process called typographic
etching, in which a brass plate is covered with a thick coat of a white
composition like wax, and a very peculiar kind of needle is used to
remove this, which is too thick to be dealt with by the ordinary needle.
Having a set of these tools it occurred to me to try them in genuine
etching, and after a little difficulty at first, I found them singularly valu-
able. The instrument is, to begin with, nothing but a little round bar of
steel, a sixteenth of an inch thick. Two flat sides are made on the grind-
stone, which meet at an angle like a capital V in the section of the little
bar. The top or round part ns ground down in the form of a snout, like
the snout of a field mouse, and there is a peculiar little edge at the very
end like the muzzle of the little animal. The needle is set in a piece of
beech, five inches long and a quarter of an inch in diameter. I beheve
these tools were invented by a son of Mr. Dawson, the eminent land-
scape-painter, so for convenience let us call them the Dawson needles.
I discovered after some practice that one such instrument might be made
to give lines of three very different thicknesses, by simply turning it a little
in the fingers. One that I now use habitually gives me —
1. A ver>' fine line in the direction of the cutting edge.
2. A broader line with the top of the snout when used upside doiKni.
3. A very broad line indeed when used side-ways.
This, of course, depends upon the way of sharpening the tool. The
practical reader will sec at a glance the enormous advantage of holding
three instruments in one. It is an embarrassment just at first, but after
practice the hand becomes used to the capabilities of the tool, and by
turning it, quite unconsciously, between the finger and thumb, converts
it from one use to another.
GROUNDS AND VARNISHES, 411
CHAPTER III.
GROUNDS AND VARNISHES.
In English, the resinous coat which protects the plate is usually called
the "ground," and the word "varnish" is reserved for that which is
applied with a brush. Let us first consider the nature of the etching-
ground.
The purpose of it is to protect the copper between the lines against
the action of the acid bath. It ought not to interfere with the use of the
needle by opposing any appreciable resistance, and it ought not to require
any kind of precaution in the etcher, who should never have to think
about it.
A really good etching-ground is of a very peculiar nature. It is suffi-
ciently hard without being brittle, and it is adhesive without being too
adhesive. It is easily removed with the point, and yet the minutest atom
of it that is left between two strokes will cling and remain and protect the
copper imtil the biting is all over.
I have given a great deal of practical attention to the making of etch-
ing-grounds, and tried many experiments. After much laboratory work
and careful comparison, I arrived at the conclusion that the best ground
was that of Abraham Bosse, so I give the receipt for it here without
troubling the reader with any other. It is sufficiently, without being
unpleasantly, adhesive, it resists the acid bath quite perfectly, it offers no
appreciable resistance to the needle, and it is very easily laid on the
copper.
Bosses Ground, — White wax, very pure, 50 grammes, gum mastic,
very pure, 30 grammes ; asphaltum, 15 grammes.
To make it you have a pan of water over a slow fire, and a clean por-
celain pot in the pan. Put the white wax first into the pot, and let it
melt. Then pound your gfum mastic in a mortar till you have it in very
fine powder, and add it gradually to the wax, stirring with a clean little
glass rod. When the mastic is quite melted and thoroughly incorporated
with the wax, pound your asphaltum also in the mortar until it is in quite
a fine powder, and add // gradually, stirring all the time, and taking good
care that there are no little lumps of asphaltum. All the three ingredients
should be perfectly blended together, which they will not be if the mix-
ture is made carelessly. After stirring for some time longer, pour the
mixture into cold water, and when it is hard break it up into fragments,
and keep it in a wide-necked glass bottle with a glass stopper. If it
has been well made you will see that it breaks in a peculiarly pleasant
way. It is slightly elastic, but then breaks suddenly, clearly, and with a
peculiar sound. It should be a dull black, rather brighter in the breakage.
Etching-ground may be applied to a plate in a liquid state, as photo-
graphers apply collodion, by keeping it in solution. It may be dissolved
412 APPENDIX,
either in chloroform or ether ; it may also be dissolved in oil of lavender.
If you make the ether solution let it stand for three weeks, and then
decant the clear portion into another phial for use. Some years ago I
used these solutions, and valued especially that in ether, but now that I
employ the roller, which will be explained shortly, I have almost aban-
doned this manner of applying the etching-ground, except for the positive
process. When solutions are used the etcher should take care to distin-
guish between apparent drying, which takes place ver>' soon, and real
drying, which may require many hours.
It is not easy to ascertain, without minute chemical analysis, what is
the composition of different etching-grounds sold ready-made. M.
Flameng tells me that those sold in London are too adhesive for his
taste, but that they resist uncommonly well. The consequence of a too
great degree of adhesiveness iii the ground is, that when the etcher does
not actually cut into the copper, he may not epitirely remove the ground,
though he thinks that he removes it, and as an extremely thin film is
enough to protect the copper, the acid will not attack his lines. I have
often been tormented by this inconvenience when using English ground,
and a very great inconvenience it is, for if so^ie lines are attacked, whilst
others are not bitten at all, the result cannot fail to be a disappointment
M. Flameng says that a disappointment of this kind occurred to him
when he used an English ground, but that he has never experienced it
with the French one he commonly uses. I made his ground the subject
of some experiments, and found it satisfactory, but for use with the roller
I prefer that of Abraham Bosse.
Each of the three elements in Bosse's ground is there for some special
reason, and has its own work to do. The mastic gives hardness, the wax
softness, the asphaltum adhesiveness. The mixture of the three in the
proportions given above secures that very peculiar balance of qualities
which is required in an etching-ground. Pitch is used in some grounds
to get still greater adhesiveness. Mastic and pitch would be brittle with-
out wax, but they would perfectly protect copper against acid. Wax pro-
tects copper, but it is too delicate by itself, except for the positive
process.
A White Ground. — White wax, 50 grammes; gum mastic, 30
grammes. Melt the wax first as before in a pot surrounded with hot
water, and then add the gum mastic ver>' gradually in powder.
This is the same as Bosse's ground without the asphaltum. It is
very transparent, but rather weak comparatively. Bosse's ground itself,
when applied \Qxy thinly with the roller, will ser\'e as a transparent
ground if not smoked.
EtchiniT-Pastcs. The two grounds already described may be con-
verted into pastes for application with the roller, by simply melting them
and adding oil of lavender in greater or less quantity as the paste is
required to be more fluid or more stiff. Mix the oil thoroughly with tlie
ground by stirring with a glass rod. As for the quantity of oil required
you can judge of that easily by letting a drop of the fluid paste fall on a
GROUNDS AND VARNISHES, 413
cold slab, when it soon solidifies as much as it can. If you find it too
hard, add more oil. The most convenient kind of paste for use with the
roller is just like the pomatum, sold by hairdressers, in consistence. It
is better that it should be rather too thin than too stiff, but it ought to
be stiff enough to stand and not flow. Whilst still hot and fluid pour it
into wide-necked glass-stoppered bottles, and after it sets pour a little oil
of lavender on the top of it to keep it from drying. With this precaution
you may keep your paste indefinitely.
Etching grounds for use with the brush. — Take some of the paste just
described with a palette-knife and add to it enough oil of lavender to
make it suflicicntly fluid for use with the brush. If you want a trans-
parent ground nothing more is to be added, but if you want your ground to
be black and opaque add lamp-black to it in impalpable powder with the
palette-knife, and rub the lamp-black and the etching ground thoroughly
well together till you have a sort of oil-paint. This black paint is a very
good ground to be laid with a brush, and it is very convenient for use in
certain circumstances. For example, a part of your etching is defective
and you would like to draw it over again without destroying the rest of your
drawing. Clean the ground off the defective place with a rag dipped in oil
of lavender, and when the copper is bare paint upon it with the black paint,
neatly joining up to the edges of what is to remain. Leave it to dry for
twenty-four hours, and then you can etch the passage over again. I must
warn the reader, however, that if the black paint is allowed to remain too
long (some weeks or months), it is apt to become brittle and shell off if there
is any excess of lamp-black in it. If properly mixed, and used within a
fortnight, it is perfectly safe, and a very great convenience to an etcher.
Stopping out Varnish, — In the first edition of this work I gave three
old receipts for varnishes of this kind, and the reader will find others in
other books, but they are all defective. Either they are not fluid enough
for stopping out very minute portions of work quite conveniently, or else
they do not dry fast enough, or else you cannot work in them with the
needle if you want to lay fresh lines across the portions of the plate which
are protected by them. After many experiments, I hit upon a stopping-
out varnish which has the following qualities : — i. It is as fluid as possible.
2. It dries at once. 3. It may be worked in afterwards with the needle.
To prepare it, make a saturated solution of white wax in ether.* When
this is left to settle there will be a part above, as clear as water, and a
part below, just like milk. The clear portion is what you want Decant
this into another phial, and if you have any milky sediment, decant again,
till all is clear. Add to this about one-sixth of its volume of Japan varnish,
and mix well You have now the best stopping-out varnish which has
yet been discovered, but as it dries very rapidly it requires a little pre-
caution in using. To use it pour a few drops of it into the tiniest bottle
you can get, with a very narrow neck, and then dip a small brush into
* Only a little wax is required, as ether will not really dissolve much. If, on settling,
there is more than a third of milky fluid, you can add more ether, shake the phial,
and let it settle again. The clear portion is a quite pure satiuated solution of wax.
414 APPENDIX,
this, adding a drop now and then when wanted. Wash the little brush
frequently in oil of lavender and wipe it well. If the varnish gets too
thick you may thin it once or twice with a drop of ether, but when the
sitting is over throw away what remains in the tiny bottle, clean it well,
and take fresh varnish next time from your phiaL There is no need to
make the varnish afresh each time, it will keep for years.
In this mixture the ether is used for greater fluidity and more rapid
drying than could be got by the use of turpentine ; the Japan varnish is
employed for its dark colour, its hardness, and its resistance to acid, the
wax is used to correct the hardness of the Japan varnish, so far as to per-
mit the etcher to work in it with the needle.
This varnish remains in perfect condition on the plate for some days
or even weeks, but in course of time the hardening power of the Japan
varnish so far overcomes the resistance of the wax as to make the ^-amish
brittle and therefore unfit to work in with the point I have always found
that all ground in which Japan varnish is an ingredient became brittle in
a few months, but when we know this it is not an objection, as there is
plenty of time to etch the most elaborate plate before the brittleness
comes on.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ACID BATH.
One of the very greatest of recent improvements in the scientific part
of etching has been the discovery of the Dutch mordant. It is vcr>' slow
in operation, but at the same time very sure. With Bosse*s ground it
enlarges the line but little, much less than nitric acid does. I cannot
conceive how any etcher, who has used it, can employ nitric acid again
except as an auxiliary, for a special purpose.
The Dutch Moniant, — This invaluable mordant is composed as
follows : —
Chlorate of potash, 20 grammes ; hydrochloric acid 100 grammes ;
water 880 grammes. Total, 1000 grammes, = i litre.
The way to make it is as follows. First heat the water by putting- the
bottle containing it into a pan also containing water, and keep it on the
fire till that in the pan boils. Now add the chlorate of potash and see
that every cr>'stal of it is dissolved. Shake the bottle to help the solution.
When no more cr>'stals are to be seen you may add the hydrochloric acid.
Make a good quantity of this mordant at once, so as always to have a
plentiful supply by you.
The Nitric Bath.— The acids commonly used for biting plates before
the introduction of the Dutch mordant were nitric and nitrous acids
diluted with water, usually with an equal quantity of water.
It is still necessar)' to keep nitric acid in the laboratory as an auxiliarv.
THE LABORATORY AND PRINTING-ROOM. 415
useful under certain circumstances, which will be explained later. Keep
it pure and dilute it when required to the degree necessary at the moment.
Perchloride of Iron, more or less diluted with water is an excellent
mordant. It bites deep and clear without enlarging the line much, and
there is no ebullition as there is with nitric acid. There is however the
objection that its dark colour rather prevents one from seeing what is
going on, and this is an insuperable objection for the positive process.
You may keep perchloride of iron in the laboratory as an auxiliary,
to be used in certain cases.
CHAPTER V.
THE LABORATORY AND PRINTING-ROOM.
It is always best, when it can be managed, to keep acids and other
chemicals out of the rooms you commonly inhabit. Any little place will
do for a laboratory if it is well-lighted. You may have your little printing
establishment in the same room. There ought to be two tables, and
plenty of shelves, with a few drawers.
Cleanliness is the great necessity in a laboratory. It ought always to
be kept as tidy and clean as possible. The room should be simple and
naked, so that everything in it may be easily dusted and washed. The
operator ought to make a rule that all shall be in perfect order at least
once a day, and keep his rule. An evening inspection will ensure this.
You cannot carry order and cleanliness too far in a place of this kind, for
there is no certainty or satisfaction in chemical experiments without thenf,
and etching is always a chemical experiment
Use nothing but glass-stoppered bottles, and have a large distinctly-
written label on each of them. Have all utensils as much as possible of
glass, or if not that at least of pure white porcelain.
The Printing-press. — For the convenience of etchers, I invented a
miniature press, which may be carried anywhere, and will give good
proofs. Mr. Roberson of Long Acre sells the smallest of these at two
guineas and a larger size at four gfuineas. M. Cadart, the publisher, also
constructed a small press, which is sold in London by Messrs. Dulau and
Co., 37 Soho Square, price six pounds. My object was to contrive a
miniature and very portable affair, which an etcher might put in his box
when travelling, and use anywhere, in an inn, in a friend's house, or even
out of doors when etching from nature.* M. Cadart's object was to con-
* I wish to make a few observations about the way of using those little presses,
as etchers sometimes write to me to complain that their proofs are pale and feeble.
As I first invented them, the roller terminated in a ring, like a ring-bolt. The
press was then to be temporarily fixed to any strong table or chimney-piece, by
means of a screw-clamp, and the printer was to insert a lever in the ring with
41 6 APPENDIX.
trive a convenient reduction of the ordinary printer's press, which, without
occupying much space, would still be a substantial piece of furniture. If
the reader can give a room specially to etching as a laboratory he will do
well to get one of M. Cadart's presses ; if not, he will find those sold by
Mr. Robcrson more convenient, as they can be put out of the way in a
minute. More ambitious etchers may set up regular presses like those
used by printers. Mr. Haden's great press for printing the ** Calais Pier"
after Turner is a magnificent and costly machine, perhaps the finest in all
London, Mr. Samuel Palmer, too, has a good press. If the reader
chooses to launch out a little in this direction he may spend from ^^25 to
£150 on his press without being cheated of a penny.
A press of some kind is not only desirable for an etcher, it is a positive
necessity. The habit of frequently taking proofs advances him in his art,
and in this sense it is not too much to say that the press is a silent but
severe master, always ready to point out the defects of our work, or to
encourage us when we deserve it. For etchers who live in the country a
press is especially necessary, the delays caused by sending the plates to
town every time that a proof is wanted are so annoying as to become in
time almost insupportable, and lead to a despairing abandonment of
correction.
The qualities of a good press are to have true motion, strong pressure
which he might turn the cylinder. Some amateur fancied that the ring was incon-
venient, and persuaded the maker to substitute a small wheel, to be turned with
the hands. Now the consequence of this "improvement" is, that the proofs are
necessarily weak, for if you j)ut pressure enough on the roller by means of the
screws to give you a fine proof, you will not be able to turn it with so small a
leverage as the little wheel affords you. I therefore quite decline to be responsible
for the success of any of these little presses, which do not afford some means of
getting the necessary leverage. The original one in my laboratory has a ring, and
to move it I insert a strong lever more than a yard long, which is equivalent to a
wlicel six feet hi diameter, the spokes of which are merely levers of the same kind,
fixed. WHien full pressure is on, I could not stir the roller without such a. lever.
Another press in my laboratory has a wheel of eight spokes, each of them more than
a yard long. These are rather more convenient than the loose lever for a fij^cd
machine, but the loose lever is more convenient for one that is not always in
the same place.
A correspondent in America who has got one of the little presses from En*'-
land says, that he fears the little roller, from its small diameter, will not mount the
bevel of the plate, when there is pressure enough to give a good proof. Cer-
tainly it will not, unless there arc slips of metal at the two edges of the 'travelling
board, to keep the roller at a certain height al)Ove the board, so tliat it may not
have to rise much upon the bevel. Suppose, for instance, that you are going to
take a proof with one of these little presses which has a plain travelling board and
a small roller. You put on a good pressure with the screws, the roller turns well
and the board travels until the plate is brought to the roller, which then turns
round and round on the flannel, without rising upon the plate. You then reiluce
the screw pressure, but the consequence is tliat you get a feeble proof. I explained
long since to the maker how this inconvenience was to be obviated, and here I wiU
THE LAB OR A TOR Y AND PRINTING-ROOM, 4 1 7
and the least possible friction. The roller must of course be accurately
turned, for if it is not, the pressure will be unequal on different parts of the
plate. The travelling-board must also be well-planed, so as to be per-
fectly flat and of exactly the same thickness throughout. Perfectly good
proofs may be taken by means of wooden presses (Rembrandt and his con-
temporaries used them), but it is necessary to send the rollers to the turner
from time to time. In applying pressure by means of the screws the
etcher should take the greatest care to observe that the pressure is equal
at the two extremities of the roller ; for if it is not, one side of his proofs
will come feebler in the printing than the other side.
I will now give an inventory of things required in the laboratory and
printing-room.
§ I. A printing-press.
§ 2. A simple kind of screw-press to flatten proofs. For small plates
a common copying-press will answer perfectly.
§ 3. Copperplates. Keep your spoiled coppers (you will have a good
many such at first) and have them replaned. If strong at first they may
be replaned two or three times. The etching by Lalanne in this volume
is on a very thin copper, which has probably been several times replaned.
A correspondent thought this objectionable, because thin coppers curved
explain it again. Screw two narrow plates or bands of metal along the sides of
the travelling board thus, so that the roller may run on them as if on rails. They
should be a ItttU thinner than the plate, and as long as the travelling board. The
plate to be printed is now to be laid between' them. By this contrivance, which I
have tested in practice, the roller encounters no insurmountable difficulty, and the
pressure may be put on by the screws to any amount required, for the production
of a good proof. I can take proofs with the smallest of the miniature presses, as
clear and powerful as with a large one, and the reader ought to be able to do
the same.
I may add that Japanese paper is much easier to print upon than any other.
I have improved my own large press lately by the addition of guiding rails.
These rails are of iron, with a square section of half-an-inch. One of them is
screwed upon the board on which the small rollers run. The other is screwed
under the travelling board, and both are placed exactly in the middle, so that the
latter is just over the former. In my press there are four running rollers, three
inches in diameter. These are of wood, so the turner made a groove in each of them
for the guiding rails to fit into, and, therefore, when in action, each roller has the
lower guiding rail in it below, and the upper one in it above. The consequence
of this is, that the travelling board can never deviate in the least, for the rail on
the fixed plank makes the rollers go straight, and the rail under the travelling
board enables the rollers in their turn to compel the travelling board to go straight
The same improvement might be appUed to smaller presses.
2 £
41 8 APPENDIX.
under the press, but M. Lidnard, my printer, says that thin ones arc as
easy to print from as others.
§ 4. A roller for rcbiting— the French rouleau ii reverftir* I shall
write a little chapter specially on the various uses of this invaluable
instrument.
§ 5. Three pieces of plate glass, twelve inches by ten, and three-tenths
of an inch thick, like those used in photographic printing-presses. The
use of these will be explained in the chapter on the roller.
§ 6. Dabbcrs. The best way to make a dabbcr is as follows : — Have
some horse-hair, some cotton-wool, and a piece of black taffetas silk, of
good quality. Lay the cotton-wool on the silk, first, in a circular shape,
about four inches in diameter, then lay a good heap of well-separated
horse-hair upon this. Draw the silk up all round and force the materials
inside into rather a flat shape. Tie the silk together, binding it with a waxed
thread, and cut off the superfluous silk. A dabber of this kind may be
cleaned with turpentine, or you may put a new cover on it and renew the
cover as often as you please, \nthout making a new dabber. The readiest
way to clean a dabbcr is to heat it over a spirit lamp, and then briskly
wipe it on clean stiff canvas of the sort used in printing. Always keep
dabbers scrupulously clean, and in a box of their own.
S5 7. Smoking tapers. What are called " cellar-rats " in France are
the best for this purpose. To make them, twist eight cotton threads
rather loosely together and dip them two or three times in molten bees-
wax. Twist a dozen of these dips together, warming them in warm water
to enable you to do it without breaking them.
§ 8. A holder for smoking. A common little tin cup with a flat
bottom. You stick the smoking taper in this with wax, and it prevents
the molten wax from running on your fingers. An extinguisher.
JJ 9. A set of etching needles. Sec Chapter II.
§ 10. A burnisher. This is if smooth steel instrument for polishing
copper by friction and pressure. It must be kept entirely free from
scratches or rust-pits.
§ 1 1. A piece of deal with two grooves in it the size of your burnisher.
In one of these keep a little emer>' powder, in the other some tripoli and
oil. liy rubbing your burnisher backwards and forwards in these grooves
you will keep it bright.
§ 12. A scraper. This is a three-edged tool, and its edges have to be
kept very sharp or they will scratch the copper.
§ 13. A flat scraper shaped like a leaf, to be kept very sharp. When
properly held in the hand this tool will take shavitii^s off the copper half
an inch or tlirec cjuartcrs of an inch long. It is the most powerful
reducer of surface.
g 14. A good oil-stone to sharpen vour tools.
§ 15. An engraver's magnifying glass, to be held in the eve.
§ 16. A larger ma-nifying <,ri;iss, to be held in the hand.
§ 17. Several photographers trays for acid baths, etc. They arc best
in glass, next best m while porcelain, after that come the irutta norrhu
gutta percha
THE LAB OR A TOR Y AND PRINTING-ROOM. 4 1 9
trays, whose chief merit is that they are not fragile. Lastly, trays may be
made of wood, painted inside with a solution of Bosse's etching-ground in
oil of lavender. These answer fairly well, and are sometimes a conveni-
ence, as any joiner can make them, and the etcher himself can paint them.
I have several such which have been in use for years. If a leak occurs,
give a new coat of etching-ground. The greatest objection to them is
that they cannot be used for everything as glass and porcelain can. Thus,
you cannot put schist oil or turpentine into them, or even ammonia, and
they arc only good for acid and water.
§ 18. A sufficient supply of bottles with glass stoppers for acid baths
and other chemicals.
§ 19. A supply of chemicals, including nitric acid, hydrochloric acid,
perchloride of iron, chlorate of potash, pure alcohol, methylated spirit of
wine (for lamp), oil of lavender, schist oil, shale oil, or petroleum for
cleaning,* liquid ammonia, ether, japan varnish, olive oil, asphaltum,
white wax, gum mastic, lamp black, and Bleu d* Argent This last is for
silvering plates for the positive process. It can only be got in England
of Mr. Roberson, 99 Long Acre. — See Chemistry of Etching,
§ 20. Finger-gloves in India-rubber.
§ 21. Willow charcoal. If you cannot get it conveniently from a
maker who is accustomed to prepare it specially for engravers, you must
make it. Take thick sticks of willow, remove the bark, cut them into
short lengths, lay them on the ground in a little stack, and cover them
entirely with red-hot wood cinders, and on the cinders heap wood-ashes,
so that no air can get to them. Leave them there an hour and a
quarter, or an hour and a half, according to the thickness of the sticks ;
then take them out and throw them into cold water.
§ 22. Tracing-paper.
§ 23. Gelatine tracing material. This is sold in thin sheets measuring
21 in. by 13 in. It is most invaluable stuff for all work that has to be
reversed. Artists* colourmen in London supply it. To use it you
scratch on it with a needle, removing the bur so raised with a strong
brush, and afterwards fill the scratches with black lead such as house-
keepers use, then, laying it face downwards on the grounded copper you
rub the back with a burnisher, which leaves a distinct tracing in com-
paratively light colour.
§ 24. Emery paper, the very finest you can get.
§ 25. Plenty of good blotting-paper, soft and thick.
§ 26. A looking-glass for reversing.
§ 27. Printing-ink. A special kind of ink is made for plate-printing :
typographic printing-ink will not do for this purpose. It is well to get
your ink ready-made from some experienced printer, or from Mr. Rober-
son. It is most troublesome stuff to make.
§ 28. A dabber made of cloth rolled into a cylindrical shape, and firmly
* Schist oil is much the best cleanser. Petroleum is too volatile for the
purpose, and benzine is much too volatile, but good in other respects. Turpentine
docs not clean so well as schist oil, and is much dearer.
420 APPENDIX,
bound round with waxed thread. The edges of the cloth take the ink,
and the dabber is held as you hold a tumbler-glass. This dabbcr may
be about the size of a pint bottle, and not unlike it in shape. Wlien
new, the end should be neatly cut flat with a sharp knife, and singed.
§ 29. A plentiful supply of printer s canvas for wiping the superfluous
ink from the plate.
•§ 30. A small supply of old fine muslin, well washed till it is quite soft.
This is used for what is called rctroussage^ which will be explained
shortly.
§ 31. The plate-heater (for heating plates for printing), which is a box
of sheet iron. It may be two feet long by twenty inches wide, and nine
inches deep, unless you intend to etch very large plates, when of course
you must have a heater big enough to warm the whole of your plate con-
veniently at the same time.
The inside of this box is to be kept full of hot air, which may be easily
managed by having a hole in the bottom of it big enough to admit the
chimney of an ordinar)- oil or petroleum lamp. If you have access to gas
ou can use it French printers, from tradition, use charcoal cinders in
a flat tray inside the box, with ashes over them to keep the heat regular
for a long time. For occasional use a spirit-lamp does perfectly, but it
would be expensive to use it long.
§ 32. A supply of paper for printing. If possible you should get a
supply of Japanese paper, another of Dutch, and one or two varieties of
French and English papers. Paper-making for etchers is now ver>- well
understood. If by chance you should run short of paper at any time,
and want to take a proof, remember that a good proof may always be
taken on any paper which is good for drawing upon in water-colour.
§ 33. A marble slab and mullcr for printer's ink. A knife for the same
purpose, like a large palcttc-knife.
§ 34. The ver)' finest whitening.
§ 35. A sponge to damp paper.
§ 36. A flat brush, like a clothes-brush, to brush paper.
CHAPTER VI.
THE ROLLER AXD ITS rSES.
The roller is one of the great modem improvements in the technical
apparatus of etching. It is a cylinder of wood 8i inches long, by 4 inches,
with two projecting handles in its axis, each of them about an inch
thick, and 4^ inches long. The roller is covered with thick smooth leather,
but between the leather and the wood there is a covering of thick flannel
to give elasticity. The leather is joined so neatly that the place where it is
cemented is hardly perceptible. It is drawn over the edges of the
cylinder, and tightened with strings like purse-strings, so that the edges
THE ROLLER AND ITS USES, . 421
arc rounded and covered. The reader will perceive that although the
roller is a very simple machine, only a highly-skilled workman can make
it perfectly well. The best are made by G. Schmautz of Paris, and they
may be got from Cadart of Paris, or from Mr. Roberson in London.
The price of one in Paris is twenty francs.
The roller is delivered in a box, which is so constructed that no part
of the leather ever touches anything. The box is very important to pro-
tect the instrument from dust, and the roller is never taken out of its box
for longer than just the time necessary for its use.
It was invented at first for one purpose only, namely, to cover the
plate for rebiting, which I shall explain shortly, but etchers soon dis-
covered that it was also an excellent instrument for laying the first
ground. Before its introduction the dabber had been used for both pur-
poses, a very clumsy thing in comparison.
Laying tJu first ground with the roller, — In the list of things useful
in the laboratory and printing-room, given in the preceding chapter, I
mentioned three pieces of plate-glass (see § 5). They are extremely
useful when you employ the roller, though not absolutely indispensable.
Copper-plates, such as you etch upon, will answer the same purpose, and
so will marble slabs, but less agreeably to the operator. I use plate-glass
for its cleanliness and the perfect flatness of its surface.
Lay your plate, well-cleaned, on one of these glasses, and have the
others on the same table conveniently near. Now take your bottle of
etching-paste, that is your Bosse ground made into paste with oil of
lavender as already explained. See that there is no dust on your glasses.
With a perfectly clean palette-knife take some of the paste and spread it
equally on one of the glasses in a horizontal band about two inches broad-
If the paste is too thick for this to be done easily, add a few drops of oil
of lavender, and mix thoroughly well with the palette-knife. Now take
your roller and roll over and over again until you spread a film of paste
quite evenly on your glass. If the roller is rather over-charged with
paste (you will easily judge of this after a few experiments) pass it once
on the other glass to get rid of what is superfluous, then apply it to your
copper. You ought to be able to lay a thin and perfectly even coat of
paste by this means upon your copper.
When the paste is just of the right thickness and is the proper quantity
it simply dulls the surface of the glass, making it of a dead pale brown.
It ought not to look like treacle. You ought to hear a regular crisp sotmd
as the roller passes over the glass. After some practice the ear will tell
you when it is right.
The plate being now covered with a film of paste your next business
is to expel the oil of lavender from the etching- ground. The oil was
merely a vehicle like water in water-colour painting. It is easily got rid
of by heating the plate gently over a spirit-lamp.* When the ground
* To do this, of course you hold the plate in a hand-vice, with a bit of paper
to protect the polished side from the vice.
APPES'DIX.
You may now cover the back of ihe plate with a little paste applied
with the dabbcr.
Whilst the plate is Eiiil warm you smote it To do this yoo light
your smoking taper ,'scc precedinfr Chapter. J 7"'. and when there is a large
flame, pii-ing off smoke, hold your plate abm-c it with the face downn-ards,
in such a manner that the ii.ime may just touch the etching-ground. Move
the plate slowly in c\-er>- direction, so that all parts of iu surface may be
smoked alike, and n,--m hirr.t.
After a verj- little practice you will be able to ground a plate much
more easily and incomparably more perfectly «-ith the roller tban you
possibly could with the dabbcr.
Grf>tn,iin_;^ ,7 pLit,/or Ii.h::ir.;.—\i is well to practise what has just
been described before attimpting to ground for reblting, as much more
skill is required.
The purpose of this process is lo cover and protect the smooth surface
of copper between the linis of a plate which has been alre^y bitten, but
insufficiently bitten, in order thai the lines may be exposed again to the
action of the acid, and deepened, without damapng the smooth spaces of
copper and without incurrinj; the great labour which would be necessary
to clean the lines of the ctchinfr-ground with the point, if they were tilled.
Hainng cleaned the plate thorou^ihly unth schist-oil and whitening
and brcMd, you lay it as before on one of the glasses and charge your
roller » ith etching paste as before. l.\king if pecial care, however, this lime
that it is no! ovcr-char^i-J, acd rerr;c\ :n^ what is superfluous by rolling on
the st-con.i j^I.ite ii^jss :f it is. Yc.u thir. pass the roller over the plate by
simply /j.,i«;>,y.hi har.d'.es with tht^ thLimbs, nol/r.v,t;>r,,'in the least, as
th.it HOi:Id nil the i.h;.;:owcr lirii^s. Koil over the plate twice in one
direction, .-.rid then twK-c -ii r:^h: ar.-!fs lo the first direction. Nothing
more m;:t; be cone. If thi; h.-.s Kin cone properly the smooth p.vrts
will be wt;] co\iTt.-d .md t!.c l:-i-j w l11 no! I>e filled except perhaps a few
of the vcr> shai'.oHfit. V.-l; -.hin t\pcl the o;! of lavender by means of
hc.it, .\s K-fore. V,ij do -;.; i:>i.-.ke this :;:ne. IVoic-ct the back of vour
pl.itc as K-forc. or H;:h ^:.^J■.J.:-i:-ou; i-.irr.ish. .ind the edges also. You
then stop out « ith the s.-.rie v.-:r:i;>h .ill ihins.e parts of the plate which arc
alre.uiy suftioicnily bittm, kavinj; the others to be acted upon by the acid.
The old-f.ishioned manner of rebiiitii: was f.ir infenor to this. The
dabbcr w.is used, and inuead of employ ins the e;ching-ground in a paste
acor,!; . ;,;:ic-,..^»3itprii-v.,. , -: tlted by beat on another copper-
p»«e. Ibej i>ijm>Mii or !L,. : .. arran-ement was that shallow
■"^s:^' -' ^hcn ^er^- skilfully done, was
■^■^ ■■ ■ . leepen the lines which did not
">!■• ■■: -.T- . t needed it. The roller makes
ftdo;,i .^.,:.< modem etchers bite shallow
* give !hi-r crtteme darks until thcj- have
^ ^ reblting as required.
BITING. 423
Grounding a plate to add work with the needle. — A third and most
important advantage of the roller is that when the etcher wishes to add
work with the needle he is not absolutely obliged to use the transparent
white ground. The roller can lay a ground so very thinly and evenly that
even after it has been smoked the very finest lines which have been
etched already remain distinctly visible and the artist can work over and
between them. He thus sees much better what he is doing than in a
transparent, ground, whilst he is just as well aware of what has already
been done- Another important advantage is that the black ground
resists acid more surely than the white one, which is always comparatively
weak from the absence of asphaltum or pitch and lamp-black, besides
which a defective place is not so easily detected in it as it is in the- dark
ground.
If the reader has not a roller he may apply his first ground in solution
like collodion, by dissolving it in ether, in chloroform, or in oil of lavender
{see Chapter on Grounds and Varnishes), butwhcn the plate has been etched
upon it is better to use the dabber, cither for rebiting, or for subsequent
work with the needle, because a fluid ground would fill up lines intended
to be rcbitten, and it does not properly protect the edges of lines which
are intended to be quite covered.
CHAPTER VII.
BITING.
The weak point of etching, which I do not attempt to dissimulate, is the
difficulty of biting accurately enough, that is to the exact degree of depth
which the artist would desire. There is always an element of hazard in
the biting, but our object ought to be at least the reduction of risk if we
cannot get rid of it altogether.
The reader is now fore-warned that he is to expect difficulties and dis-
appointments at this stage of the process ; at the same time certain
devices will be explained by which these difficulties have been much
reduced.
The qualities of a satisfactory biting are t—
\ t. To be instantaneous and simultaneous in the first attack. Some
lines on the plate ought not to be biting whilst others are not yet affected
by the acid, for if this occurs the balance of the work will be destroyed,
n though the lines which were untouched at first should be attacked
subsequently.
. To be regular in its operation. The biting ought not to go on
nickly for some time and then slowly, nor ought it to stop altogether
,t the will of the operator.
[t ought to eat the lines in depth and not in breadth (or as little as
424 APPENDIX.
possible) unless the artist desires to increase their breadth, when the acid
ought to do what he wishes.
§ 4. The biting ought to be well under the control of the operator
from beginning to end.
Now let me explain some causes which often prevent these desiderata
fromjbeing realised.
First with regard to § i. Etchers often suffer from the great annoy-
ance of seeing their plate attacked unequally. Some lines will be quite
deeply bitten, whilst others are not bitten at all. The consequence in the
proof may be imagined. A plate which was harmonious in the drawing
looks, in the printing, like the shattered fragments of a ruined inscription.
All its tones, too, have gone wrong, and it must either be repaired at the
cost of great labour, or else begun over again, with the risk of a similar
misadventure. What is the reason for this ? M. Flameng gave it as his
opinion that the cause was too great adhesiveness in the ground ; M.
Greux, on the other hand, thought that the true reason was the state of
the copper before the ground was laid, which in his own case he con-
tended against by bathing it in acid and water, till water dropped upon it
would spread^ and not run off in globules. I suffered at one time greatly
from this annoyance, so much that it seemed as if there were an evil spell
upon my plates, for the acid attacked the lines irregularly here and there
in patches, or one line would be bitten and the one next to it (although
apparently drawn in the same way) would resist the action of the acid for
several hours. I therefore made many experiments on etching-grounds,
especially with regard to the quality of adhesiveness, and I found in
accordance with M. Flamcng's opinion that the less adhesiveness there
was in the ground, the less was the liability to an irregular attack in the
biting. This is why I recommend Bossc's ground. It is sufficiently
adhesive but not too much so, and therefore the etching-point easily
removes it from the true surface of the copper. When the adhesion is
excessive, the paint may often leave a thin film of ground upon the
copper not perceptible to the eye, but enough to defend it against acid.
But in addition to this I took two other precautions. First, I determined
that the surface of the copper should take water well before being
grounded, and found that the following treatment effected this better
than anything else.
1. Bathe the plate in the Dutch mordant {sec Chap. IV.) for five
minutes, or till it is all stained dark.
2. Wash it well in clean water.
3. Bathe it in a mixture of equal parts of liquid anmionia and water
till the copper shows red all over.
4. Wash it well in clean water and leave it in the water for half-an-
hour.
After this treatment the surface of the copper offers no resistance to
water, but can be really lifcttcd. It will therefore not resist an immediate
attack of acid in the acid bath if laid bare by the point.
I dry the plate over the spirit-lamp and do not touch it with any rag.
BITING. 425
but remove dust with a clean camel-hair brush just before applying the
ground with the roller.
After adopting this system I had no more accidents of the kind
described above, but to make assurance doubly sure I forced myself into
the habit of cutting into the copper itself with the etching-point. If an
etcher were always quite sure of doing this it would be unnecessary for
him to trouble himself with precautions about the surface of the copper
— he need not even clean it, but in the excitement of rapid work,
especially when it is done from nature, one is apt to forget to cut into
the copper, so that it is well to be sure about the state of its surface also.
The reader is now in full possesssion of means which will enable him to
contend against one of the greatest inconveniences which can occur to
him.
Now as to the requirement § 2, regularity of operation. Is there
danger of irregularity? Yes, there is. What are the causes of it?
There are two or three causes, so we will take one at a time. One cause,
then, is a difference of temperature. You have founded your calculations
about the effects of biting upon an experiment performed under a certain
temperature. You afterwards bite a plate under another temperature
and are surprised to find the result different from what you expected it to
be. But you ought not to be surprised, for temperature is like the
regulator of a watch which makes it go fast or slowly. Heat makes
the acid bath bite fast, cold makes it bite slowly. Evidently, then,
there is a very simple way of obtaining regularity so far as heat can effect
it, and that is to keep your bath artificially at the same heat by means of
a thermometer and a lamp. I place my porcelain tray that contains the
bath on the plate- warmer which is commonly used to warm plates for
printing. I put the lamp under it and regulate the heat of the bath
to ninety degrees Fahrenheit, just as if I were giving a warm bath to a
delicate patient. I keep it steadily to that heat * till the whole operation
is over, and by this means, whether in the height of summer or the depth
of winter, I know what is done in a given time. Here, again, one of the
commonest causes of miscalculation is entirely obviated by the simplest
means.
There is a peculiarity about biting with nitric acid which requires to
be noted, for it cannot be got over. When many lines arc close together,
as in close shading, they bite sooner than when isolated. Biting begins
in the closest work, and attacks the most isolated lines last. It creeps
into some lines gradually by a sort of contagion from some piece of close
shading, as an epidemic disease spreads into the thinly-peopled country
from dense centres of population. The Dutch mordant and perchloride
of iron both attack more regularly.
Another cause of miscalculation is this. The bath may be very strong
at first and then rapidly weaken. I will take an extreme instance.
* You need not put your thermometer into the acid You can have a smaller
vessel on the same plate-warmer, containing pure water as an indicator.
426 APPENDIX,
Suppose you apply nitric acid quite pure, with a brush ; the ebtiUition is
most violent at the beginning and the action of the acid is tremendous,
but in a short time its energy is expended, it has taken up so much copper
that it can dissolve no more and you have simply a thick nitrate of copper
lying on the surface of your plate. Here the energy is great at the
beginning and gradually but swiftly lessens ; evidently, then, you are not
to count upon the action of such a bath as if it were regidarly continuous.
The same thing occurs in all cold baths in minor degrees, and now bow
are we to combat it ?
First, we may observe that the quicker and more energetic the action,
the quicker also is the decline of power in the bath, we, therefore, do well
to choose mordants which operate slowly, such as the Dutch mordant.
Again, the smaller the quantity of the mordant the sooner it becomes
charged with copper and weakened in its action. It is, therefore, an
excellent rule to have deep and large trays for the baths, and put a great
quantity of mordant into them. We can also refresh the bath from time
to time by pouring out a part of it and adding fresh mordant. Is there
any means of ascertaining how much the bath has been weakened ? Yes,
just as the thermometer informs you of its strength, so far as heat affects
it, so the colour informs you of its condition as to absorption of copper.
When it becomes of a very dark green you know that it has dissolved
much copper and weakened itself accordingly. Therefore, just as you
keep up to one temperature keep to one colour, a rich green, neither pale
nor dark. Mind that the depth of the bath is always the same, or you
will not be able to judge of the green. In the warm bath evaporation
concentrates the chlorate solution and so counteracts the weakening.
We have said that the action of the bath ought not to stop altogether
except at the will of the operator. The inexperienced reader will be
much surprised to hear that such a thing ever occurs, but it does occur
with all mordants. The lines, for some reason which we will endeavour
to ascertain when speaking of the chemistr>' of etching, are hollowed
do^Mi to a certain depth but then the acid strikes work and eats no
farther. A safe practical precaution against this is to take your plate
out of the Dutch mordant from time to time, put it in pure water of the
same temperature (plenty of water in a big tray), wash it thoroughly for a
quarter of an hour, and brush into all the lines lightly but effectually with
a camel-hair brush. If we could add anunonia to the water it would be
still better, but we cannot, because ammonia spoils the etching-ground
and causes it to come off in flakes.
We may now pass to § 3. We said that the acid ought to eat the lines
in depth and not in breadth (or as little as possible) unless the artist
desires to increase their breadth, when the acid ought to do what he
wishes.
This is almost entirely in our own power. Powerful acid baths which
cause ebullition^ as, for example, a strong nitric bath, greatly increase
the breadth of lines whilst they bite. Baths which operate slowly and
without ebullition, such as the Dutch mordant and perchloride of iron.
BITING. 427
bite in depth without much disturbing the edges of the lines, unless the
etching-ground is very weak. For example, the Dutch mordant will not
eat much into the edges of the lines when the plate is well covered
with Bosse*s ground, but it widens them much and steadily when the
plate is only covered with a thin coat of pure white wax applied in solu-
tion. Pure nitric acid, on the other hand, widens lines always and
enormously, upheaving all the small patches of ground which are left be-
tween the lines and carrying them away. The reader now perceives
that with different mordants and grounds we have the power of widening
lines or not as it pleases us. In some cases it is necessary to do so, and
then we choose either a weak ground (as in my positive process) or else
a strong ebullient mordant such as nitric acid. In general practice it is
however most desirable that lines should remain as nearly as possible
such as they were originally drawn ; hence the Dutch mordant and the
perchloride of iron mordant are precious resources for an etcher. A deep
narrow line prints clear, pure, and intensely black, it therefore greatly
helps to give a brilliant appearance to an etching.
The reader is especially requested to remember that lines are always
sure to be enlarged in rebiting, because the ground applied for that
purpose is always necessarily very thin, and it is not smoked. It is there-
fore prudent to use the Dutch mordant for rebiting, or a dilution of per-
chloride of iron, and to heat the bath little, say to 70 degrees, except in
cases where an enlargement of the lines is thought necessary to the rich-
ness of the effect, as it sometimes may be.
We said (§ 4) that the biting ought to be well under the control of the
operator from beginning to end.
This is already to a great extent insured by the precautions I have
already indicated, but still farther precautions may be taken with advan-
tage. An excellent one is to have a tell-tale or indicator in the same
bath with the plate. This is a slip of copper-plate of the same quality
and covered with the same ground. The etcher draws upon this a
quantity of lines and shading resembling in quality the lines and shading
upon his plate. The tell-tale is then put into the bath along with the
plate, and from time to time it is taken out and a portion of the ground
removed, when the etcher sees at once what the acid has been doing, and
can judge whether it is time to stop out portions of the plate itself. To
make assurance doubly sure, he ought, however, before stopping-out, to
remove a little ground with the scraper from the portion of the plate
which he thinks is sufficiently bitten, in order to see positively that it is
so. Even then it will require some practice before he can really know
the state of his plate by seeing a little bit of the bare copper.
// is better to underbite a plate in the darks than to overbite it, because
if underbitten in these lines it is easily darkened afterwards by rebiting,
whereas when they are too much bitten it is difficult to reduce them
without spoiling the quality of any finer lines that may happen to be in
their immediate neighbourhood.
// is better^ on the other handy to overbite light afid pale passages than
428 APPENDIX,
to underbitc thcm^ for, if they are undcrbitten it is most difficult, if not
altogether impossible, to rebite them, because you can hardly ever cover
the plate with etching-ground without filling them up, whereas, on the
other hand, they are very easily reduced when overbitten, either by char>
coal or simply with the scraper and burnisher.
In concluding this part of the subject let me warn the reader against
two evils common in the work even of clever men,//7//«ij', and rotten lines.
Pitting is the occurrence of involuntary dots which, if neglected, get very
deeply bitten and cannot then be removed without spoiling the work
round them — rotten lines are lines which were intended to be continuous,
but which show interruptions and involuntar>' differences of quality.
Pitting may be due to impurities in the materials of which the etching-
ground is composed, that is, there may be minute particles of foreign
matter imperceptible to the naked eye but soluble in acid. Minute pitting
is produced purposely in this way in aquatint engraving. Asphaltum, it
appears, is usually more or less impure, containing various foreign sub-
stances which, being soluble in mordants, expose a plate to spotting. To
purify asphaltum the following method has been proposed by M. Deles-
champs. It may be powdered, and washed in water acidulated with hydro-
chloric acid. This dissolves the metallic oxides, and organic substances
float on the surface and may be removed. The asphaltum is then dried,
reduced to a very fine powder, and passed through a fine silk sieve ; this
retains the siliceous particles, and the asphaltum is now pure. White
wax is occasionally adulterated with potato powder. It is quite pure in
the r/tv/r ether solution, and accordingly, in my positive process, although
the ground is of the most extreme tenuity, pitting neater occurs. Pitting
may sometimes be caused, when gelatine paper has been used for tracing,
by the pressure of the burnisher, which has cither penetrated the ground
in consequence of little specks of roughness on the gelatine, or else
removed adhesive little specks of roughness in the ground itself.
Either cause is quite enough to expose the copper, and yet the naked eye
may not perceive it. Now, although pitting may be of very little conse-
quence in some parts of a plate, it may be its ruin if it occurs in others —
in a face, for example. The best way to avoid it, after taking due pre-
cautions to get pure chemicals, is to put the plate, before biting seriously,
into a weak mixture of nitric acid and water. Dutch mordant tlarkens
lines, and pitting in a black ground is not perceptible to the eye when
this mordant is used. Nitric acid cleans copper and shows it light.
Whilst the plate is in the bath examine it well, and after a few minutes
remove it to a bath of pure water and pass a camel-hair brush all over
it. In the water you will discover pitting if it exists, but to help yourself
use a strong magnify ing-glass. Remove from the bath and stop-out all
the spots with stopping-out varnish. The slight biting which has been
caused by the weak nitric bath is easily removed with emery paper after
the plate is bitten.
The commonest cause of rotten lines is this. The point, instead o^
removing the whole of the ground along its passage, has only partially
STOPPING-OUT, 429
removed it, so that the copper has been protected here and there.
Wherever it was protected there are necessarily interruptions. Another
cause may be that some foreign substance has been allowed to get into
the line after it was drawn — bits of loose etching-ground may have got
into it, or grease of some kind, perhaps from the etcher's own fingers,
if he has not used a hand-rest.
As a proof of what a very delicate affair biting is, let me tell the
reader an anecdote. I had drawn two elaborate little plates and left them
on my table, forgetting to put them in a protected place. A hot summer
sun came and looked in upon them — the sun of a Burgundy July — and so
the plates were heated and the ground softened. Still the drawing looked
perfectly clear, so the plates were put into a cool place and resumed their
former appearance. When it came to the biting, however, lo ! it was
impossible ! The sun, in heating the plates, had caused something to
ooze out of the etching-ground and varnish the lines — imperceptibly to
the eye, but quite sufficiently to protect them against the acid bath. A
plate which is drawn upon should be kept in a safe covered place until
it is bitten, and should be bitten as soon as possible after it is drawn.
Plates may be kept in shallow well-fitting drawers, or in wooden trays
that may be laid one upon another.
It is a good precaution, whilst etching, to clear away all the loose bits
of etching-ground with a camel-hairbrush, so that you may not be tempted
to use the little finger, which would often choke the line.
When you bite a plate with nitric acid, small bubbles of gas arise in
the lines. If you leave these undisturbed, they will cause interruptions
in the lines, because, where the gas-bubble protects the copper, the acid
no longer bites. It is therefore necessary, in using the nitric bath, to
remove these bubbles continually with a small feather.
CHAPTER VIII.
STOPPING-OUT,
The best stopping-out varnish has been already described at the end of
the Chapter on Grounds and Varnishes, and also the way to use it, but I
wish to add a few practical hints which may be of service.
It is a good principle to keep lengths of biting very distinct from each
other. It is not wise to trust to biting much for gradation. Minute dif-
ferences of shade can hardly ever be insured by stopping-out For
example, if an etcher were to stop-out after every five minutes of exposure
to the Dutch mordant, much of his labour would be thrown away.
Let me be quite absolutely frank with the practical reader on this
subject. Some account of personal experience is best in a matter of this
kind.
In theory a shade bitten twenty minutes and a shade of exactly the
430 APPENDIX.
same kind bitten thirty minutes, ought to be very different in the printing
— the latter ought to be much the darker of the two. In practice they
may be exactly the same.
I was etching a plate at the beginning of this }*ear, after many years
of experience in these matters, and it had a dark back-ground entirely
shaded in the same way. To get two different shades I bit half the back-
ground for twenty, and the other half for thirty minutes. The result in
the printed proof was a shade of precisely the same tone and quality
throughout*
But now observe a very curious thing. I lowered the whole surface
of the copper with charcoal, and by this means got the difference of shade
which I desired, for now the part which had been bitten thirty minutes
showed distinctly as much darker than the other.
What did this prove ? It proved that the part which had remained
longer than the other in the acid had really been bitten deeper, but at
the same time there was the evidence of the first printed proof that this
difference of depth in the lines made no difference in the printing.
Again. It has happened to mc not once nor twice, but many times,
to try to get gp^dations in skies by stopping-out narrow bands from the
horizon upwards as the biting proceeded, and yet the result has been that
the shade was pretty nearly the same all over, so that the stopping-out
was a waste of time, for one biting would have sufficed for the result
obtained.
These are facts of positive experience, not theories. They are
directly contrary to the received theor>' of the subject. Can wtr get a
sound explanation of these facts?
A deep etched line docs not deliver all its ink to the pa|>er. The
evidence of this is that when a proof has just been taken, tlie plate still
remains so much charged with ink that much ink comes out of the lines
if we cleanse them with petroleum and a brush. A narrow line, moderately
deep, gives as much ink to the paper as it can give, and you will not
make the line any blacker by deepening it still farther.
When lines are much widened at the same time that they are deep-
ened, they give off more ink because the paper is forced more into them.
In Turner's etchings the lines are embossed hy the press. It follows from
this that with effervescing mordants, such as the nitric bath, which \\iden
the lines, finer distinctions of biting may be usefully observed than with
the quiet mordants which widen the line but little.
My advice is not to stop-out a plate more than twice or three times
before removing the ground and taking a proof. I have often been asked
by young etchers to give some fixed scheme of biting for their guidance.
I adapt the following from a paper which I wrote and fastened on the wall
of my own laboratory. The reader will perceive that it is for an elaborate
plate, a simple one may be carried through with much less trouble. The
reader will also perceive that ver)- few bitings are given before a proof is
taken, and that the plate is often proved.
STOFPING'OUT. 431
SCHEME OF ETCHING.
Dutch bath heated on plate-warmer to ninety degrees Fahrenheit,
% I. The plate is covered with Bosse's ground. The etcher has drawn
upon it all the most important organic markings upon which the life
and meaning of his work depend ; the frontispiece to this volume
is an example of such markings. He immerses the plate for fifteen
minutes, then stops-out all the lightest markings in distances, etc., after
which he immerses for twenty minutes more, and stops-out the middling
ones, which are not to be very dark. Finally he immerses thirty-five
minutes for the darkest and strongest lines. The account, therefore,
stands thus : —
15 min. 20 min. 35 min.
This represents the inmiersions, but the total of time during which
the acid has acted is
15 min. 35 min. 70 min.
§ 2. A proof having been taken, the plate is now grounded again and
smoked as before, care being taken to fill up the lines sufficiently for their
protection.
All strong shading is now added to the plate with the point, but nothing
else. It goes through three immersions as before, with stoppings-out
between the first and second and the second and third wherever the
shading may appear sufficiently bitten. These immersions are —
10 min. 15 min. 25 min.
which give in totals
10 min. 25 min. 50 min.
§ 3. The ground having been again removed and another proof taken,
the etcher has before him a plate consisting of nothing but organic lines
and strong shading. If it has been well done it will have a firm and manly
look, but it will be wanting in delicacy. Parts of it will require a veil of
tender shade. He will, therefore, cover the plate again and shade it
wherever required with a fine needle. The bitings are now reduced to
two,
3 min. 6 min.
giving in totals
3 min. 9 min.
§ 4^ The ground having been removed once more and a proof taken, the
next question is — Do any parts of the work require an increase of force ?
If they do, it is to be got by rebiting in the lines already made, which has
been clearly explained in the chapter on the use of the roller. The etcher
will, of course, previously stop-out all those parts which he does not desire
to have rcbitten, and he will use his own judgment about stopping-out
other parts after more or less immersion.
§ 5. Even when a plate is in the advanced condition supposed in the
present case it may still require improvement of a particular kind. Its
432 APPENDIX.
parts may require to be better brought together, it may be wanting in that
great quality of art — unity. This is to be attained most easily by careful
retouching of parts, when you can see the whole of what has been already
done, and in order to do that, the plate ought to be covered with a trans-
parent, or what is called a " white " ground (see Chapter on Grounds).
But here we have to encounter a very serious difficulty. It is very easy
to apply a safe white ground to a smooth plate, but very difficult to make it
safe on a plate where there are deep lines already. The reason is that
the ground is always very thin and weak (unless great care is taken) on
the jagged edges of the hollows, which are soon exposed to the action of
acid, and when once they are attacked the disease spreads rapidly.
Suppose a plain traversed by deep ditches and covered with snow. There
may be plenty of snow in the ditches and on the flat surface, but there
will not be so much just on the angle between the two. The safest way
is to apply the white ground with the brush, plentifully, as it fills the
hollows well, and when one coat is dry you can give a second, using the
brush at right angles to the first direction in which you used it. If heat
is used to expel the oil of lavender, it must be with the greatest care, and
only just enough for the purpose, for when the ground is melted it alwa>'s
by a sort of repulsion, avoids those very edges and angles which most
need its protection. Suppose, however, that you have succeeded in cover-
ing your plate safely, the next thing is to etch upon it, and by far the most
convenient way for seeing what you do is to put the plate in a bath of
Dutch mordant, not heated this time (as it is not desirable that its action
should be accelerated) and do what you have to do whilst the plate is in
the bath, using a fine needle (which the acid itself will keep sharp for you)
and beginning with the darkest parts, passing gradually to the lightest.
When the last are finished you must take the plate out at once and get a
proof. Old-fashioned etchers always treat this process as if it were
merely a display of temerity (as if one made displays of temerity in the
solitude of his own laboratory), but there arc most substantial reasons for
its use. In the first place what you do in the transparent ground becomes
immediately visible, because the Dutch mordant darkens the line as soon
as it is drawn, and so lets you see it in its relation to other lines. Next,
you can get various depths of biting at different parts of your work,
without the time and labour of several different stoppings-out. WTiat-
evcr may be the (not very valuable) opinion of those who have never
tried it, I recommend this part of the process after much personal
experience of its utility.
§ 6. The plate is now nearly finished, but a certain refinement may
be given to it by the use of the dry point, that is by engraving with a
steel point sharpened to a cutting edge. In light parts the ver>* thin pure
lines which can be got by this means arc often of great value, especially in
skies. In darker parts, the bur raised by the instrument is useful for a
certain softness and richness, but it is not much to be relied upon if a
large edition has to be printed.
This sketch of a system of etching is merely intended as a guide for
AUXILIARIES. 433
beginners in elaborate plates. A proficient artist usually goes on without
method, and employs this or that process just when he needs it or thinks
it would suit the convenience of the moment In working from nature
one cannot wait for successive bitings, everything has to be drawn whilst
there is an opportunity, for drawing it. The consequence is that stopping-
out, in these cases, becomes a long and tedious business ; to do it well you
require a very fine small camel-hair brush, fluid stopping-out varnish, and
endless patience. The task, for instance, of separating, by stopping-out,
the branches of a tree in the foregroimd from those of others behind it in
the middle distance, could never be performed satisfactorily by a hurried
or irritable artist.
CHAPTER IX.
■
AUXILIARIES,
§ I. The Dry Point, mentioned in the last chapter, and to which I shall
return in a chapter devoted specially to its use, is an auxiliary of great
value which all approve and recognise. There are, however, other
auxiliaries more or less generally approved of. (See Chapter XII.)
§ 2. The Burin, — Much may often be done with the engraver's burin to
correct or reinforce a plate, especially in the shadows, but even if the
artist has the skill to use this very difficult instrument, he is much exposed
to a serious artistic danger. He may put so much burin work into a
plate that he will not be able to harmonise it properly with the etched
work, and then there will be the fatal result of ruin by discord, like the
permanent misery of a quarrelling married couple. It is not six months
since I engraved a sky altogether with the burin, and had to efface it
entirely, because of its technical dissonance with the etched work in the
same plate, though the engraved sky was of better quality in many
respects than the etched one which I substituted for it The burin is
often extremely tempting for re-touches, as you have not to take trouble
about re-grounding and biting, and you see what you do at once. Burins
are kept very sharp, and pushed with the palm of the hand.
§ 3. The Roulette. — This is a very little wheel with a broad circumfer-
ence, which is cut into sharp points. As the wheel runs on the surface of
the copper it makes dots, all of which are visible in the printed proof.
It raises a small bur, which has exactly the quality of mezzotint, and in
fact is mezzotint
Many lovers of etching have a strong prejudice against the roulette,
but I notice that they sometimes admire the result obtained, whilst
blaming the means used as illegitimate. Some artists have used it
beautifully in combination with a simple kind of line etching, which it
supports very well. Hervicr's sketches of boats are charming instances
of this, and so is at least one etching by Villevieille, called " En Picardie."
They worked, in fact, exactly on the same principle as Turner did when
2 F
434 APPENDIX,
he etched the Liber Studiorum plates to be finished in mezzotint, the
only difTercncc being that the roulette is employed more lightly as a sort
of sketched mezzotinting. It ought to be used rather sparingly, and in
subordination to the etched lines, to sustain theuL
§ 4. The Dcrceau. — This is the regular instrument used to produce
mezzotint. It is an expensive tool (worth about 30s.), and is used simply
by rocking it from side to side like a cradle (whence the name). It pro-
duces points in great numbers (more than a hundred at each movement),
and these make a soft dark or rich black in the proof. They have
generally to be lowered with the scraper to paler tints. The professional
mezzotint engravers attain wonderful skill in the art of getting different
tones by this means. Mezzotint does not stand large editions weU, but if
the berceau is used on the grounded plate and the dots bitten^ then they
will print as long as etched lines. The effect is not so rich, but it is more
in harmony with bitten lines.
To get an intense black with the berceau it is necessary to go over
the same place very many times, holding the tool successively to all the
points of the compass.
§ 5. The Cravate. — This is Daubign>''s name for an auxiliary which
may be mentioned. Cover the plate with etching-paste with the roller,
filling up the lines already etched, and then lay upon it a piece of taffetas
silk. Go over this with the burnisher or pass it once through the press.
Then remove it, and leave the etching-paste just as it remains on the
plate for two or three days to dry. Now stop out aU parts which you
intend to leave quite white, and subject the other parts to the action of
the Dutch mordant, which will bite a granular tint upon the plate. You
stop out successively the parts which seem to you sufficiently bitten.
This only gives a succession of flat tints, but some gradation may be
after>%ards introduced by the scraper and burnisher. Fine new muslin
may be used in certain plates, or parts of plates.
§ 6. The Soft Groutui. — The old soft ground process may be used as
an auxiliary. Ktching ground was mixed with an equal quantity of tallow,
and applied with a dabber, and smoked in the usual way. A sheet of paper
with a grain was then laid on the plate, and the artist worked with a pencil
on the paper. The paper when removed took away the ground where the
pencil had passed, and the acid in the bath bit the copper into a sort of
grain like a lithograph. In using the process as an auxiliary it is best to
begin with it and use the line work afterwards in the usual way.
§ 7. Flat Sulphur Tints. Oil the plate liberally with olive oil, and
blow flour of sulphur upon this ; the sulphur if allowed to remain on the
plate will produce a flat tint more or less deep in proportion to the time it
remains. I have a great dislike to sulphur tints all over a plate, for they
are very heavy and dead, but they may sometimes be used with good
effect in deeply shaded parts. Some of Appian's best plates owe a great
deal of their charm to them. They are valuable for evening effects to
sustain deeply bitten lines, when they produce the effect of highly artifi-
cial printing.
THE AUTHOR'S POSITIVE PROCESS. 435
CHAPTER X.
THE A UTHOJ^S POSITIVE PROCESS.
A BRIEF explanation of my positive process may be useful to some readers
who do not possess the Etcher's Handbook.
The plate is first simply cleaned with fine emery paper and then
silvered with Bleu d' Argent or Silver Cream. See Chap. V. § 19, and
Chap. XI. § 9. Bleu d'Argent may be thinned, if necessary, with water
or alcohol.
The silvered plate is now covered with white wax by applying the
clear solution of white wax. {See Chapter on Grounds and Varnishes,
paragraph on Stopping-out varnish.) It must not be heated to expel the
ether, but left to dry for at least twenty-four hours. This ground is very
delicate and must not be touched with the fingers. It is applied as
photographers apply collodion, being poured on the plate and rapidl
poured off again at one comer before it sets, with such a motion as to
spread it equally.
Sketch the subject very lightly, for your guidance, with a little thin
stopping-out varnish and a small camel-hair brush. Tracing is imsafe
on account of the delicacy of the ground.
Immerse the plate in a shallow and cold bath of Dutch mordant,
slightly charged with copper. Then with a fine needle etch the darkest
bits of it first and pass gradually to lighter parts, finishing with the
lightest If your bath is right, every line will blacken the instant you have
scratched it, and you will see the effect in a black line on a white ground.
The lines are constantly enlarging, because the ground is purposely
delicate, therefore you have no need to use more than one sharp point.
Knowing this, you will etch all that are intended to be thick and powerful
organic lines in the beginning, advancing gradually to others, and reserv-
ing light veils of transparent shading to the very last, when they will act
as glazes.
If the plate is too big to be manageable in five hours, etch only a part
of it, and finish that, light, shading, and all. Then stop that out with
stopping-out varnish, or with white ground applied with the brush (the
first is safer, the second more convenient, because it leaves the work
visible, but it takes much longer to dry), and afterwards carry the plate
forward by finishing another part in the bath, and so on till all is done.
I have used the positive process for large and elaborate plates.
This process has two advantages ; the first, that the artist sees his
work in black lines on a white ground ; the second, that when he has
done drawing his plate is bitten with an elaborate variety of tone which
can only be equalled in the old process by the most laborious and tedious
stopping-out. There is consequently a great economy of time when the
436 APPENDIX.
artist is skilful, but there is the disadvantage that he cannot correct
whilst he is at work, so that every stroke prints, neither can he reserve
snudl points of light in masses of shade which can so easily be done with
stopping-out varnish in the old process. My positive process is, however,
quite perfect and convenient in its own way, and has been greatly approved
of by some eminent artists, but it is not suitable for beginners, who ought
to be able to correct, and who cannot expect to calculate with much
accuracy the effect of biting upon each line when they make it An artist
who etched (let us say) in Mr. Haden's manner would find the positive
process useful, and able to give what he wanted better than the old pro-
cess, because he could get many different depths of line without stopping-
out ; but an artist who desired to etch like the engraver-etchers who copy
pictures, would find the constant march of the acid too embarrassmg for
him.
CHAPTER XI.
THE CHEMISTRY OF ETCHING.
A FEW brief chemical notes may be of use to the reader. Professor
BarfT, of the Royal Academy, has very kindly answered my questions on
this subject, and so have other scientific friends ; it is therefore hoped
that these notes may be relied upon.
All chemicals used in the etcher's laboratory should be in the pure
state in which they arc sold to scientific chemists for experiments.
§ I. Hydrochloric Acid.—\^Qii pure this acid is white and smokes
very little or not at all. The common hydrochloric acid of commerce
often smokes so much that it is quite unsuitable for use in the etcher's
laboratory', and especially in the positive process. This acid smokes
more in hot weather than in cold, and more when there is ammonia in the
atmosphere than when there is not any ammonia. However white it may
be, it will turn yellow after contact with iron. The impure acid usually
sold by druggists contains diflfercnt things which do not much aflfect its
powers as a mordant, but only the pure acid is agreeable to use. The
worst is simply intolerable. Its yellow colour may be caused by the
presence of iron, or it may be yellow from the presence of free chlorine
gas.
§ 2. Action of the Dutch Mordant. — This mordant, as we see in the
positive process, stains the copper of a dark colour, which looks positively
black by contrast with the silver, and is in fact a dark red purple. The
copper is stained so deeply that you cannot rub the stain away without
removing some portion of the copper itself.
The dark stain is sub-chloride or sub-oxide of copper.
The chlorate of potash in the mordant produces chlorine h P^int
naissant.
THE CHEMISTRY OF ETCHING. 437
The work of the hydrochloric acid is to effect the disengagement of
chlorine.
Chlorate of potash is a magazine of chlorine, charged with it as much
as possible. It is this chlorine which, being disengaged by the acid, acts
upon the copper.
The chlorine has probably a double action. It may simultaneously
attack the copper directly, forming chloride of copper, and take up the
hydrogen of the water, setting oxygen at liberty, d, Vitat naissanty which
forms, with the metal, an oxide of copper. The hydrochloric acid may
dissolve this oxide. It has little action on the pure metal.
I have endeavoured to ascertain whether the Dutch mordant can be
prejudicial to the health of the operator, especially when he works in the
positive process. Enchlorine is given off, which is a very powerful body,
and which, untampered, would be dangerous. On the other hand, if the
laboratory is well- ventilated there is nothing to fear. In a small quantity
chlorine is positively useful as a disinfectant and preservative against
epidemic disease. In case of suffering from its use in an ill-ventilated
laboratory, the proper antidote is milk.
§ 3. Action of Dutch Mordant and Ammonia in preparing plates, — In
the chapter on biting I gave an account of a way of treating plates by
Dutch mordant and ammonia as a preparation for etching. I now
explain the chemical action.
The Liquid Ammonia dissolves the salt of copper which the Dutch
mordant has formed on the surface of the plate (that is the sub-chloride
or sub-oxide of copper). At the same time it lays the metallic copper
bare and free from all impurity.
§ 4. Use of water in the Dutch Mordant, — Water is essential for the
preservation of the chlorine in the chlorate of potash until it can act upon
the copper. If hydrochloric acid is poured upon chlorate of potash in
crystals without the intervention of water, enchlorine is given off in dense-
fumes, and the qualities of chlorate of potash are no longer available It
is necessary to dissolve the chlorate first in water before adding the acid.
Water is both a vehicle and a moderating and conservative element in
the mordant.
§ 5. Action of Nitric Acid upon Copper, — Nitric acid first oxidises
and then dissolves the copper. It does not darken the lines in biting
them as the Dutch mordant does by producing the sub-chloride of copper.
§ 6. Arrested Sitings, — ^This very unpleasant phenomenon, the despair
of etchers, is chemically explained as follows : —
* There may be something more than this. A French friend offers the follow-
ing as a hypothesis. ** Uoxyde de cuivre attaqu^ par Fammoniaque doit donner
de Tazotatc de cuivre, et en depot du cuivre pur en poudre. L*oxyg^e de Poxyde
de cuivre se porte en partie sur Tazote de Tammoniaque pour former de I'acide
azotique qui s'unit a ce qui restc de I'oxyde de cuivre et forme Pazotate de cuivre."
Pure copper is oxidised in the presence of ammonia, and the oxide is then dis-
solved. Ammonia is thus a real mordant, but it cannot be employed as such,
because it injures the etching-ground.
438 APPENDIX.
By allowing the mordant to remain long undisturbed on the copper,
a coat of oxide gets formed which is not dissolved as the acid solvent is
weakened.
Suppose this to represent
\ A / a magnified section of a plate,
\ and A C the depth of a line,
^^_ / the oxide lodges at the bot-
tom, between C and D. At
D \G\x have a solution of
C chloride or nitrate of copper
according as you use th
Dutch mordant or nitric acid, and at A you have the pure liquid.
The specific gravity of the liquid at D is greater than that of the liquid
at A, so it remains in the hollow, and the action is to a great degree
retarded, if not altogether arrested. The remedy suggested is i*-ashing at
inter\'als in distilled water and the addition of fresh mordant to the bath.
There is potash in the chlorate* and this, as chloride, will make the liquid
thick, and impede, after a time, the solvent powers of the hydrochloric
acid.*
§ 7. Pcrchloride of Iron, — The action of perchloride of iron on copper
is essentially the same as that of the Dutch mordant. It produces
chloride of copper, and probably also oxide of copper, which it dissolves.
§ 8. Effect of Iron on lines in the Dutch Mordant. — The dark lines in
a plate covered with Dutch mordant may at any time be turned to a light
copper colour by touching the plate \i*ith an iron instrument. It is
suggested that in the presence of the iron the oxygen in the oxide of
copper flics to the iron, but what becomes of the sub-chloride ?
§ 9. Composition of Silver Cream to Silver Plates for the Positive
Process, With the help of a scientific friend I have tried to imitate
Levi's original creme d\irgent and succeeded perfectly. As this creme
d'Arj^ent has not been procurable since the war of 1S70 (when the
inventor probably died), the reader may be glad to know how to make it.
The first thing is to procure chloride of silver. This may be done as
follows : —
Pour 60 grammes of nitric acid into a tumbler, and add the same
quantity of water. Put the tumbler into a small pan half filled with water,
which you set over the flame of a spirit-lamp. Throw a shilling into the
tumbler, and let the mordant boil five minutes. Remove from the tire,
and let the contents of the tumbler cool. The shilling will now be entirelv
dissolved.
When the solution is cool, add to it 120 grammes of pure water and
then pour into it, drop by drop, 25 grammes of hydrochloric acid. This
will immediately produce a white precipitate. Now transfer the whole
into a large glass and add pure cold water liberally, stirring well with a
• One chemist suggests that if ihc Dutch mordant is useil, it may l>c a •^ockI
precaution to immerse the plate Irom time to time in a weak nitric mordant after
washing it well with distillcil water.
THE CHEMISTRY OF ETCHING, 439
glass rod. This is to wash the precipitate. Let it settle to the bottom
of the glass and pour away the acid and water. Fill up again with pure
water and repeat the washing. Pour off the water again and wash the
precipitate a third and a fourth time in pure water.
You may now dry the precipitate between sheets of blotting paper and
on a warm glass. When it is dry weigh it. A shilling ought to give ten
grammes of chloride.
The next thing to be done is to dissolve your chloride. You begin by
making a strong solution of cyanide of potassium as follows : — Put 80
grammes of water in a tumbler, and put the tumbler in a pan as you did
before with the mordant, till the water in the tumbler boils. Dissolve in
it 20 grammes of cyanide of potassium. When the solution is accom-
plished, put your 10 grammes of chloride of silver into the tumbler and
stir well for five minutes with a glass rod. Leave the solution to cool.
You have now a solution of chloride of silver in a solution of cyanide
of potassium, but it is too acid and too fluid. You therefore add 25
grammes of cream of tartar, and after that 50 grammes of chalk, stirring
well till all ebullition ceases.
The best way to use the silver cream is to apply it first with a camel-
hair brush and leave it for five minutes on the plate ; then rub the plate
with a clean rag till nothing is left but the metallic silver.
Chloride of silver may be made rather more promptly by simply
dissolving photographers* nitrate of silver in water and then precipitating
the chloride.
The following is the receipt in a condensed form : —
Chloride of Silver .
10 grammes
Cyanide of Potassium
20 „
Water
80
Cream of Tartar
25
Chalk
50 »
It is desirable to use as little water as possible, that the cream may
not be weak and thin.
Readers who are not accustomed to chemistry are warned that cyanide
of potassium is one of the most terrible of poisons. Even its odour pro-
duces disagreeable and alarming symptoms in some persons. Mind that
no drops of the strong solution get upon any little wound on the hand.
Ventilate the laboratory well immediately after making the silver cream.
440 APPENDIX.
CHAPTER XIL
DRY'POIXT,
Plates are sometimes engraved in pure dry-point with the bur left to
catch the printer's ink. This is not really etching, so it shall be passed
very briefly here, but it is an etcher's process, and therefore must be
mentioned.
The bur is the ridge raised by the tool as it ploughs the copper. When
it catches too much ink it is reduced with the scraper tiU it takes just
enough. The scraper must be used very cautiously.
A mixture of tallow and lamp black is rubbed into the lines as the
work proceeds, that the workman may see what he is doing.
The raising of the bur does not. simply depend upon the amount of
pressure exercised, but also on the angle at which the needle is beUL
D E
/
F
A C B
Let A B be the plate, and C D, C E, C F, the graver held in different
positions. With the exercise of precisely the same amount of force a
line drawn with the graver as at C D will be weaker than a line dra^n
with the graver as at C E, and C F will draw a blacker line still, because
it will raise a higher bur. The inclination of the graver is of course
always made to the right. The line A B is supposed to be the plate on
which the reader is working. He is recommended to make experiments
on inclination in this way, and to take proofs in a press, that he may sec
the result. An hour so spent will teach him more than a page of theory.
It is eWdent that without knowing this fact about inclination a dry-point
engraver is always liable to unintentional variations of force if be relies
upon bur for his effect In cases where bur is not the object, inclination
is of much less consequence.
The reader must not think of drj'-point as a thin and meagre art. It
may be made to look very rich, and this is not surprising when we
consider that it is really mezzotint in line^ for the effect is got by bur
both in dry-point and in mezzotint. The hand is not nearly so fi-ee as it
is in etching, and this objection, together with the serious one that dry-
points will not safely yield large editions, has caused etchers' dr>--point
to be much neglected.*
* With regard to this question of printing, I may observe that my large dry-
PRINTING. 441
Engravers* dry-point is done on different principles In this the bur
is removed. An etcher may use it occasionally amongst his etched lines
in a manner very nearly resembling etching. Mr. Ruskin uses it very
skilfully in this way.
CHAPTER XIII.
PRINTING,
A FEW brief notes on printing seem necessary in this place, but the
subject is much too large to be treated with any thoroughness here. It
occupies more than 300 closely printed pages in Roret's Encyclopaedia.
If the reader wishes to pursue the subject further, and can read technical
French, he should get the little volume, which may be had separately.*
I presume that the etcher merely wishes to prove his plate and does
not care to print editions. If he desires to print a few proofs of his own
plates for sale he must apprentice himself for a week or ten days to a
good professional printer accustomed to print etchings for good artists.
The following brief directions are all that is needed for proving.
Heat your plate on the plate-heater (Chap. V., § 31) until it is nearly as
warm as the hand can bear, then take up some printing-ink with a p^ette
knife, lay it on a comer of the plate-heater, and add a drop or two of
boiled linseed oil if it is too stiff to be easily dealt with. You then take the
dabber (Chap. V., § 28), take some of the printing-ink up with it, and
ink your plate ^ over, driving the ink thoroughly well into the lines.
For the first proof it is even necessary to rub the ink well into the lines
with your finger. In using the dabber apply it with a strong rocking
motion all over the plate. Do not strike the copper with it, and jiever
slip or slide it on the copper.
When the plate is well inked all over take a piece of printers* canvas
crushed together in a large lump, but lightly, and wipe the plate with it
till the ink is in great part removed from the surface. To clear margins
and parts that are required to come quite white it is usual to employ ^a
rag damped with weak acidulated water which has potash in it and (in
point, in the first edition of Etching and Etchers, called Two Stumps of Driftwood^
gave 1000 copies (after being steeled) without perceptible wearing. On the other
hand, a plate of mine called The Tower of Vattthot was intended for the Portfolio^
but, by M. Flameng*s advice, .was not published in that periodical, because it was
found difficult to print it without injury beyond the first 100 proofs on Japanese
paper. This latter plate was an etching, but the whole of its effect was due to
work with the dry p>oint.
* Encyclopedic Roret, Manuel de Tlmprimeur en Taille-douce, prix 3 francs.
Paris, Librairie Encyclopedique de Roret, Rue Hautefeuille, No. 10 bis. The
reader will also find a good deal of curious technical information about etching
and engraving in another volume of the same collection, entitled " Graveur.**
♦ —• -
_ . ■. »
: i:,^": :>'. '—.T-CiZT.'. V f-;:~.r* .
mm m m . ^ m j_- vsaaW •
...A.*, t.
m ■ •
r»~.' ■" f ^rr.:-" jri' ri-— .-
-. .V .'*
v..
• . .•.-.-
: "w -.ir
« - H T** " ■ • -^ • ■ ■
PRINTING, 443
Artistic printing may be defined as that in which the smooth surface
of the copper between the lines is itself more or less charged with print-
ing-ink. This is done to enhance the effect by giving a rich and soft
obscurity to certain parts of the work. Without it the rich plates of
Flamcng after Rembrandt would look comparatively meagre, and the
quality of his work would not be perceived or appreciated.
In artistic printing certain parts of the copper are more cleaned than
other parts. Some are cleaned perfectly, others are left charged with
much printing-ink. Some are first cleaned and then the ink is brought
over them afterwards by retroussage.
Reiroussage is managed as follows. When you have removed the
superfluous ink from the surface of your plate by means of the canvas and
the chalked hand, you take a piece of very soft fine old muslin that has
been well washed and dried, and you play with this lightly over the part
of the plate which you desire to print most richly. It pumps the ink out
of the lines and spreads it between them on the smooth copper. This is
very easily done, and it can be done more or less as desired, so that it is
well under the control of the workman. The effect is often excellent when
retroussage has been judiciously employed.
Artistic printing has, however, often been carried much farther than
simple retroussage could carry it, and in the extreme of artistic printing
it is necessary to leave a good deal of ink on the darkest and richest
portions of the plate, softening it with the rag to equality of tone where
desired.
In open line etchings reiroussage has the effect of making the lines
appear much broader, therefore when the lines in a plate of this kind are
too meagre, retroussage may be resorted to with advantage.
An etcher may etch from the beginning in view of artistic printing and
plan his effects for it, but when he has not done so it may sometimes
happen that this kind of printing will save a meagre or otherwise defective
plate by hiding its faults and bringing into more striking evidence what-
ever beauties it may possess.
The preparation of paper for printing must now be briefly explained.
If it were dry the oil of the ink would stain it unpleasantly ; it would not
be forced easily down into the lines nor spread by the roller along the
surface of the plate. An impression of an etching is really a cast of it
taken in paper instead of in plaster of Paris.* The lines, which are
hollowed in the copper, appear in relief upon the proof. The paper must
therefore be very soft, almost pulpy, and to effect this it is well wetted
and kept damp for a couple of days. An etcher who takes a proof
occasionally cannot keep damp paper always by him, so he is recom-
mended generally to sponge the sheet before using it. Sponging is
enough for some papers, but others are not sufficiently softened by it for
immediate use, so that it is a much safer rule to allow your sheet of paper
to soak for ten minutes in a bath of pure water, and afterwards lay it be-
* Proofs can be taken in plaster of Paris. Many an etcher has used it in the
absence of a press. They arc simply casts from the inked plate.
444 APPENDIX.
twecn difTerent sheets of blotting-paper, when you may use it at once. It
is a good precaution with all foreign papers except Japanese and Indian,
to brush them with a clothes-brush just before taking the proof. It dis-
engages the fibre at the surface, and better disposes it for penetrating into
the lines.
For proving a plate, pass it once through the press to take the proof,
and not once and back before lifting the paper, as printers do ; because
that often more or less perceptibly doubles the lines, and you want to
ascertain the exact truth about your lines.
Sec that your press, if a large one, is well supplied with four or five
good soft cloths to lay between the roller and your paper. Proofs may be
taken with two if they are thick and good.
If the paper slips along the plate and creases, the reason always is too
much friction somewhere in the press. Find out what causes the friction,
and remedy it Keep asdes well oiled
It is a mistake to suppose that proofs are better for excessive pressure.
There is a certain (very considerable) degree of pressure which is neces-
sary to a good proof, but anything beyond it does no good and may create
inconvenience, if only by making the press more difficult to work.
When proving a plate it is very useful to take an oif-track. This is a
paler copy of the proof, printed /n^M // in reverse immediately after it is
taken. You simply put the fresh proof in the press instead of the plate
and lay damped paper upon it You get an impression in reverse, that is
in the same sense as the copper itself, and this considerably facilitates
reference for retouches. In etching directly from nature without the
mirror your drawing comes in reverse in the printing, so that there can be
no local resemblance. If anybody in the neighbourhood asks for a proof,
you will have to give him an off-track, or he will not recognise the place.
To dry proofs you require thick, soft, porous pasteboards (made on
purpose), always kept very clean, of course, and you put your proofs
between these boards under the pressure of a screw-press or hca\'y
weights. Do not put more than two proofs between two boards, and let
the proofs be back to back, with their faces to the boards. The principle
of drying proofs is exactly that of drying plants for an herbarium, for they
have to be dried and kept flat at the same time. Herbarium paper and
a botanist's drying-press would do, but boards are preferred for the more
certain flattening of the whole sheet on which the etching is printed. A
sheet of herbarium paper may be laid on the pasteboard to prevent it
from receiving an ofi*-track from an etching which is thickly printed.
Change the pasteboards once, and keep them, when not in use, where
there is a current of air to dry them. They should then be arranged with
a space between every two of them for the air to pass freely over both
sides.
When you have done with printing for the day, be careful to clean the
plate thoroughly with petroleum, schist oil, benzine, or turpentine, so that
no ink may be left in the lines. It would harden there and be difficult to
get out afterwards.
PLATE XII.
POPLARS AND OAK, a sketch from nature.
By P. G. HAMERTON.
PLATE XII.
(To be placed opposite page 444.)
Poplars and Oak, a sketch from nature.
By P, G. Hamerton.
This little sketch is f;;iven as an example of a rapid and convenient way of work-
ing directly from nature <^\ the copper. The author first drew all the organic
markin;:;-N, inclu^ling the deepest indications of shade, out of doors in a sitting of two
hours, but nothing more The remaining hiitory of the plate is given below.
BITINGS.
In Dutch Mordant, heated to 90" Fal-rcnheiL
Outlines of clouds ......
Oipnnic lines in trees, and marks of deepest shading in them
Darkest organic lines and markings in shrubs and water
I'Ir.^t pr<j'.»f taken. The plate in this stage consisted of nothing but
organic liiKs an-l niarkinLjs, witli M:»nic indication of its deepest shades.
It was now covcro'! v.j^zaw with l];e l^l.-.ck ground. The sky was shaded
in h'.-ri/onial lino-, the wliolc ('T the water was sliadeil in vertical lines, and
the ri/in;; i.Tuui:<l in the di.-iance wa.^ >lia lc<l in crossed lines. Lights on the
wat-.r were .stopped »)Ut witli tlie bru.dL
Tile .-:i;y was now bitten in a gradoiion of stoppings out from four to
sixteen minute?, tlie rising ground was bitten eight minutes, and tlic vertical
shadinL; on tlie water from ten minutes to twenty.
Tlic plate is puq:'Oscly not ret«»uchcd in any way.
Sec< md proof tab en.
A m'->re fiivvhed aj pcarancc miglit easily be given to it by the judicious
use of the scraper and tlie drj-poinL
'J'liere are sonie rotten lines in the sky, occnsioncd by their having l>ccn
drawn wiih too Ilglit a liand They could easily have been corrected witli
the burin.
This etcbing is ]>ririled ver\' <im})ly, being cleanly wiped. The wnter
and forc'Tound slinibs are ntroussh.
THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 44S
CHAPTER XIV.
THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE.
Several correspondents have requested me to write them a chapter on
the interpretation of nature in etching, showing the best means of render-
ing this or that kind of natural material. Such a subject would require
a volume, with innumerable references to the works of etchers, and a
thorough analysis of their ways of execution. I have already been tempted
to extend the present volume considerably beyond the limits of the
first edition, and could not without making it burdensome, include a
treatise on the interpretation of nature. I rather suspect, too, that
amateurs who want information of this sort are often in that peculiar
stage of art-culture when people believe that useful recipes can be given
for " doing trees " etc. The only really valuable and generally applicable
piece of advice which I can give is to select some good etcher whom you
really like, get two or three of his plates and copy them rigorously in fac-
simile. That will compel you to observe what methods of interpretation
were adopted by the etcher you have selected for your master, and
whilst you are at work copying, you may apply your mind to the closest
study of his ways. Very likely they will not suit'you altogether, very likely
it will seem to you that the etcher might have done otherwise and done
better, which only means that you have a different idiosyncrasy from his.
When you are tired of him you may copy somebody else, and when tired of
copying etch directly from nature, only trying to think how your master
would have interpreted the sort of material before you. It is a great
thing that you should be firmly persuaded that interpretation is always
necessary. Good art is 'always interpretative, and good etching is most
especially so. The true and sound principles upon which the interpreta-
tion of nature in etching ought to be founded have been stated on pages
251 and 252 of this volume, especially in the quotations there. The
leading ideas of good etching are the interpretation of nature by the
selection of the most important lines and the separation of the most
important masses, with a suggestion of the most characteristic details.
But no teacher can convey to a pupil the faculty to make these selections,
and yet on that faculty the whole value of his interpretation must depend.
Therefore it is that such a book as this can never make an artist, but it may
render humble service to one who is already born with the true gift And
if any such truly enviable favourite of Nature should by chance get hold
of the book in future years, let me wish him strength and long life to
continue greatly the tradition of a great art, an art which existed in all its
majesty some centuries before we were bom, and which, in spite of coldness
and indifference, will survive as long as there is copper to make a plate
and acid to bite it.
t
CATALOGUE INDEX.
It is necessary to give a few words of explanation about the use of this
index, which is at the same time a catalogue.
When this book was first published, a certain number of its readers,
in different parts of England and America, conceived the idea of illustrat-
ing it for themselves by forming collections of the etchings mentioned or
criticised in its pages. The plan was excellent, and deserved all possible
assistance and encouragement ; for, with the help of such a collection, the
reader would learn more about the art in the leisure of a few evenings
than the book could ever teach him by itself. I therefore determined, if
ever it arrived at a second edition, to give an index to the plates men-
tioned, which should at the same time be a catalogue of such illustrative
collections. The names of etchers are alphabetically arranged, and the
plates are numbered from first to last in Roman numerals. If the reader
¥rill therefore put corresponding numerals on the etchings he.possesses,
the present index will become at once a convenient catalogue for him.
The best way is to put the Roman numerals in the lower left hand comer
of the mount on which the etching is pasted, and the arabic numerals
(which refer to the page of this volume where the plate is criticised) in the
lower right hand comer of the mount. By this, reference becomes easy
either to the catalogue or the criticism, and the volume becomes a hand-
book to the reader's collection.
A few remarks about the arrangement of collections may be of use to
beginners who, having happily all before them, have not yet committed
themselves to a bad system.
There are several different ways of arranging and keeping a collection
of etchings, but they may all be reduced to three —
1. The portfolio.
2. The volume.
3. The box with shelves.
The portfolio system requires no explanation whatever. Every one
knows what a portfolio is. I may observe, however, that all portfolios
should be made "w'whJlapSy which are of inmiense utility for the prevention
of dust.
The volume system is the one in use at the British Museum. It is
convenient for a public collection, because it exposes least to the risk of
disorder. The volumes are made specially for the purpose with leaves of
448 CATALOGUE INDEX.
stout board, each board having a hinge of its owo. The etchings are
pasted to these boards by the upper edge only. This system is good for
a public collection, but not so good for a private one. The private owner
often shows his treasures to several friends at once, and then it is desirable
that they should be separate, and not pasted in a book.
The box with shelves, is merely a box which opens like a cupboard.
Inside it is arranged with shelves, which can easily be drawn out. The
shelves should be of very thin light wood, plain deal is best, or cedar for
a cabinet de grand luxe.
Of the three systems, the last is quite incomparably the best. The
portfolio does sufficiently for a collection in its infancy, but portfolios
are awkward things, and become shabby in time, which gives a collection
an untidy appearance. You would require a g^reat number of portfolios
for anything like a considerable collection. We all begin with them, of
course, but a time comes when they get too full, and too shabby, and then
is the time to set up the box system.
The most convenient way is to have the little boxes or cupboards of
one uniform height, so that you can build them up like stones in a walL
Sixteen inches may be fixed upon for the height As for the other
dimensions, they will depend upon the size of the mounts, of which more
presently. The little cupboards or boxes should have folding doors like
an herbarium cabinet, and {please take note of this) the doors should be
so arranged by the cabinet-maker that when the boxes are built up like
stones in a wall, each little pair of doors shall open quite easily, without
catching their neighbours.
Having once carefully decided about the sort of box to be adopted,
you get the cabinet-maker to make enough of them for your present
wants, and then add others of the same kind as your collection increases.
The collection will thus always present a neat and uniform appearance.
The shelf should be an inch larger than the mount in each direction.
Do not waste space in having clumsy thick shelves. For the two smaller
sizes given below, the shelf need only be three-sixteenths of an inch thick,
for the largest but one it may be four-sixteenths, and for the very largest
five-sixteenths.
There may be ten shelves in each box. It is desirable for order and
convenience to have many shelves, and few etchings on each of them.
Now about the mounts. They are made to order of any size, but it is
far more convenient to take the sizes which are always kept in stock by
the artists' colourmcn. I therefore give four sizes which include all that
is ever necessary, except for some very exceptional plate, such as Mr.
Haden's Calais Pier, after Turner, which ought to be framed and hung
on a wall ; besides, it is not mentioned in the present catalogue. For a
very rich collection the mounts should be hand-made, — the best in the
world are Whatman's hand-made mounting-boards. More ordinary
machine-made English boards are still quite good enough, and they now
make boards in Germany from wood-paper which are extremely economi-
cal and still look very decent.
CATALOGUE INDEX. 449
The following are the sizes required : —
Demy . . Size 18 X 14 (4 sheet).
Royal . . „ 22 X I7i (4 sheet).
Imperial . . „ 28 X 20 (6 sheet).
Atlas . . » 3ii X 24J (6 sheet).
The Atlas boards will only be found necessary for such plates as the
large ones by Flameng after Rembrandt, but a well-ordered collection
ought to be able to give lodging to these, and to the big Rembrandts,
without treating them shabbily. Of the four sizes the Royal is most
generally useful, the Demy is given for small etchings, because it is a
positive injury to them to give them too much margin, they look lost in
the middle of a great board.
To mount an etching so as to make it enter into a regularly ordered
collection, you begin by cutting the margin to within an inch or less of the
plate mark all round. An inch is enough for large plates, and half-an-
inch for small ones, others may vary between the two. You then very
carefully paste, with stiff paste, about a quarter of an inch of the top edge
of the paper, so as to fasten it to the board, but leaving the rest free.
There is no other really satisfactory way of mounting etchings. If
fastened by the four corners they pucker in damp weather.
Many of the modem etchings in this catalogue can be easily procured
through the printsellers ; the older ones may be met with occasionally,
and at sales. The collector ought not to be discouraged because his
collection is incomplete — the pleasure is to have an incomplete collection,
to which one adds a good impression from time to time. If the reader
cannot easily procure all the etchings in this Catalogue, he may often
supply the place of them temporarily by copies, or by photographs, or
photo-engravings, such as those by the Amand-Durand process. {See
page lo^y footnote). When these cannot be got the place may be tem-
porarily supplied by a careful tracing, which will remind you of the plate.
Unfortunately, in the great public collections, tracing is not permitted, but
sketching is, and a sketch of the original, on the same scale, is much better
than nothing. To have a perfect collection of originals is, in these days,
a luxury for Barons de Rothschild or Dukes of Westminster, yet com-
paratively poor men may have very interesting though incomplete collec-
tions. The great thing is to enjoy and appreciate the few good things
we have, and to enjoy the pleasure of gradually adding to them.
Many readers may wonder that French and English are mixed up in
the titles of etchings here. They are so chiefly for convenience of
reference to previous well-known catalogues, or else because a title may
not always have seemed conveniently translatable. Indeed, whenever
the French title is given in preference to the English one, there is always
some reason for it. In the case of Unger*s etchings, for instance, I have
given the title in English when the catalogue of them was in English, and
in French when the catalogue happened to be published in French.
Sometimes I have given the title of an etching in French from simple
2 G
X5*
■".si T~IIa»r5. Tian* T-t
•.JBC
IWIf
CacTuaEA3X ....
ULZizz, EI*":! mii die Soiussullst
"TTT. itiSEin fr:ai x fisii^nESxI
r.nTL .\iifeL jcs
lai'ii-l. Lrreaaer 1 7 .
LTTT- Nut Hir i. Sir-jsr-
1.TTT7. Pin i. M :ffr.:.gw : > Xinxi
iTTTri. Rier.h«?rae ie J.
ULX-X-'V. TT.CZfUZji ie C
EriTi:::-:
lxi.'ct:. SiTrr, Vj*, in F<*3a7;:'i H^cae .
Lxxxv::. Hj H>r:::«5s .
Lxxxv:::. \{fi.-^.:r.
LXX-Xi-T. fj :-!*::: o: ±« eld Mascers
DL7Aii :.v, K.UL1 ....
X :. Cow, SLeer. an-i Herdsniin, w>j a Get m the
XCL R::in near a .S:nram, Anis: skccch:ng
DURTR .....
xc:i. St. Tcrom*
XCIIL Virgin and Chili
E\t:rdingex ....
xciv. Mar., ihe, near a gap in a Fence
xo'. Torrent Collages by .
Feyen-Perrix ....
xcvi. Sailors Infanqr
xcvii. Vanneoses de Concale .
—J
i47
SI"}
«?5
^97
<^^<t?tniri^
-55
2i5
no
lOI
106
106
71
"3
117
no
226
2^7
CATALOGUE INDEX.
453
Flameng ........
xcviii. Abreuvoir, after Troyon ....
xcix. Francis I. and the Duchess of Etampes, after Bonnington
c Hundred-Guilder Print, Flameng's copy of .
CI. Night Watch, after Rembrandt
Gaucherel .......
en. Avenue, Middlehamis, Holland, after Hobbema
cm. Canal in Venice .....
CIV. Sun of Venice going to Sea, after Turner
Gauermann .......
Geddes ........
cv. Give the Devil his Due ....
cvi. Head of Martin, an auctioneer at Edinburgh .
cvii. Landscape ......
cviii. Little Girl holding a Pear ....
VjEORGE .....a..
cix. Amboise, Chateau and Bridge
ex. Angers, Hotel de Pinc^ ....
CXI. Schloss Elz, View of the Castle approached from Garden
CXI I. Trier, the Market-place, Fountain, and Rothes-Haus
GiLLi, Alberto Maso .
exiii. Un Rimprovero
Goya ....
exiv. Bull-fighting ; plate 3
cxv. Bull-fighting ; plate 7
exvi. Bull-fighting ; plate 10
ex VI I. Caprices ; plate 23, Aquellos Polbos
cxviii. Caprices ; plate 36, Mala Noche
cxix. Caprices ; plate 30, Porque esconderlos ?
Gravesande, Van S' .
cxx. Abconde, le Lac de .
cxxi. Escaut ^ Burght pr^ Anvers
exxii. Foret, Entr^ de . . .
exxiii. Gein, pr^ Abconde, au bord du
exxiv. P^e, Retour de la .
exxv. Pecheurs sur la c6te de Normandie .
Haden ......... 294
exxvi. Agamemnon, the . . . • . . 257, 308
cxxvii. Battersea Reach ...... 307
cxxviii. Early Morning in Richmond Park .... 306
cxxix. House of Benjamin Davis, Smith (Newcastle-in-Emlyn, South
Wales) ....... 306
cxxx. Out of Study Window . ... . . 300
cxxxi. Sunset in Tipperary ...... 303
exxxii. Sunset on the Thames ..... 301
cxxxiii. Shere Mill-pond, Surrey ..... 304
PAGE
371
371
399
369
225. 379
379
226
379
140
274
274
274
277
276
354
359
358
357
356
141
142
123
126
126
126
126
127
127
133
134
136
136
135
136
137
454
CATALOGUE INDEX.
rxxxnr. Towin^'Pixh .....
303
rxTXT. Whutki's Hook St Old Chdseft
302
HOLLAJL .......
loS
rxxxTT. Gentleman piar^ o>^ ^ Guitar
no
CXXZTIL Greenwich, die lon^ view of .
no
Hook .......
341
CXXXVIXL Fisherman's Good-nigiit ....
34*
cxxxix. Gathering eggs from die Cliff
343
HOKSLEY ........
34^
CXL. Deserted Village; plate 6i ....
343
CXLI. Duenna's Return .....
34^
CXLII. WeaTer's Cottage, mterior of ... .
343
Jacque ........
1S9
CXLIII. Ferme ......
192
CXLIV. Hiver. ......
193
CXLV. Labourage ......
194
CXLVI. Pastoral ......
191
CXLVII. Petits, Petits !......
192
Jacquemart .......
183. 382
CXLVIII. Conpe de Jaspe Oriental . . . . .
187
CXLIX. Coupe de Jaspe Oriental . . . . .
188
CL. Drageotr de Cristal de Roche . . . .
188
CLI. Dutch Cottagr, interior of, after Willem Kalf
385
CLii. Elisabeth dc Valois, Rcine d'Espagne, after Sir Antonio Moro
387
CLI 11. Fleurs, Huit etudes et compositions de
186
CLiv. Hanap dc Cristal de Roche . . . .
187
CLV. HLstoire dc la Porcelainc ; plate 6 .
1S5
CLVi. Histoire de la Porcelaine ; plates 14 and 15 .
185
CLV 11. Mocrdyck, after Van Goyen . . . .
384
CLVin. Repose, after Bcrghem . . . . .
382
CLIX. Salicre de Lapis Lazuli . . . . .
188
CLX. Vase dc Jaspe Oriental . , . . .
187
CLXI. Vase Antique de Porphjnre . . . . .
187
CLXii. Vase Antique de Sardoine . . . . .
186
CLXI 1 1. Young Woman, Portrait of, after Lucas Cranach the youngei
r 386
JONGKIND .... . . . . .
128
CLXiv. Honflcur, entrance to the Port . . . .
131
CIJCV. Ilonflcur, Sortie du Port . , . . .
132
CLXVL Honflcur, view of the Railway Port .
131
CLXVII. Town of Maaslins, Holland . . . .
130
Knight .........
351
CLXViii. Drinking Song ......
352
CLX IX. Peasant and the Forest ....
352
Laguillermie .... , .
»55, 372
CLXX. Dwarf of Philip IV. of Spain, after Velasquez
372
CATALOGUE INDEX.
455
Lalanne .
CLXXI.
CLXXII.
CLXXIII.
CLXXIV.
CLXXV.
CLXXVL
CLXXVII.
CLXXVIII.
CLXXIX.
CLXXX.
CLXXXI.
Bordeaux, ii .
Concorde, Pont de la, Paris . .
Demolition pour le percement de la Rue des £coles
Demolition pour le percement du Boulevard St Germain
Environs de Paris ....
Fribourg, Suisse ....
Hugo, Victor, house of, twelve small Etchings
Landscape in the Traiti (U la Gravure d VEaujbrU
Neuilly, Seine
Ru€ des Marmousds (Vieux Paris) .
Vue Prise du Pont St. -Michel
Lalauze .
CLXXXii. Baby is very Good
CLXXXiii. Baby's Soup
CLXXXI V. Drawing Lesson
CLXXXV. Music Lesson
LAN90N
CLXXXVi. Faubourg, 30 Aout soir, 1870
CLXXXVii. Boulevard Montrouge 187 1 .
CLXXXViii. Route de Mouzon, 31 Aout 1870
Legros .....
CLXXXix. Bell-Ringer .
cxc. Bonhomme Mis^re .
cxci. Coming out of Church
Le Rat .....
CXCI I. Leonardo Loredano, Doge of Venice, Portrait
Giovanni Bellini
LONGUEVILLE, De . . .
CXCI 1 1. Au Mouillage
cxciv. En Mer
cxcv. Sous Vapeur
cxcvi. Sous voiles courant Grand Laigue
Martial .....
cxcvii. Houses at the Angle of the Boulevard des
the Rue de la Paix
cxcviii. Lettre sur TEauforte
cxcix. Porte de la Sacristie du Coll^ \ Beauvais
ca Rue des Precheurs .
cci. Rue du Pantour St. Gervais
ecu. Theatre du Vaudeville
cciii. TourcUe de I'Hotel Schomberg
Meissonier ....
MAryon
cciv. Notre-Dame de Paris, Abside de
ccv. Pompe, la, Notre- Dame
ccvi. Pont Neuf .
of, after
Capudnes and
PACE
180
179
179
180
182
181
181
180
178
180
212
212
212
212, 216
212
234
235
235
235
227
228
228
229
383
382
233
234
234
234
234
214
216
215
214
214
214
218
214
147
167
174
174
176
45
CATALOGUE INDEX.
ccvii. Rue des Toiles, Bouiges
ccviii. Stryge,le .
ccix. Tourelle, Rue de la Tixennderie
MiLLAIS .....
ccx. The Young Mother .
MONGIN .....
ccxi. Estefette, after Meissonier .
morgenstern ....
Neuville, De .
CCXI I. Mobiles \ la Tranche Si^ de Paris
OSTADE .....
ccxiii. Famille, la .
ccxiv. Hurdy-gurdy Player
X A^UJ&K . • • • •
ccxv. Come, thou Monarch of the Vine
ccxvi. Early Ploughman .
ccxvii. Full Moon .
ccxviii. Herdsman .
ccxix. Rising Moon
ccxx. Sunrise
Potter, Paul ....
ccxxi. Bull, the .
ccxxii. Cheval de la Frise .
ccxxiii. Cheval Fr^missant .
ccxxiv. Cows, two, in foreground. Herdsman and
in middle distance
ccxxv. Horses, three Studies of
ccxxvi. Mazctte, la .
QUEYROY .....
ccxxvi I. House of Jacques Cceur at Bourges
ccxxv 1 1 1. Loches
ccxxix. Rue des Ar^nes at Bourges
Rajon .....
ccxxx. Dutch Housewife, after Nicolas Maes
ccxxxi. John Stuart Mill, portrait of, after G. F. W
Redgrave. ....
CCXXXI I. Barbara
ccxxx 1 1 1. Corpse discovered in a Wood
ccxxxiv. Silver Thames
Rembrandt ....
ccxxxv. Abraham's Sacrifice
ccxxxvi. Ansloo, Cornelius, portrait of
ccxxx VI I. Asselyn, portrait of
ccxxxviii. Bathers
ccxxxix. Bouquet de Bois
atts, R
three other Cows
rACB
172
175
339
340
379
379
140
23s
97.98
99
100
324
337
329
336
332
333
337
loi, 102
105
105
los
105
105
105
221
222
221
222
373
375
373
346
348
348
348
73
83
92
93
88
95
CATALOGUE INDEX.
457
CCXL.
CCXLI.
CCXLII.
CCXLI 1 1.
CCXLIV.
CCXLV.
CCXLVI.
CCXLVII.
CCXLVIII.
CCXLIX.
CCL.
CCLI.
CCLII.
CCLIII.
CCLIV.
CCLV.
CCLVI.
CCLVII.
CCLVIII.
CCLIX.
CCLX.
CCLXI.
CCLXII.
ccLxi;i.
CCLXIV.
CCLXV.
CCLXVI.
CCLXVII.
CCLXVIII.
CCLXIX.
CCLXX.
CCLXXI.
Ridley
CCLXXII.
CCLXXIII.
CCLXXIV.
Christ Healing the Sick
Clement de Jonghe, portrait of
Coppenol, the lesser (a portrait)
Cottage with the Great Tree
Death of the Virgin
Descent from the Cross by Torchlight
Diana at the Bath .
Ephraim Bonus, portrait of
Hagar dismissed by Abraham
Hundred Guilder Print
Jacob and Laban .
Janus Lutma, portrait of
Jesus Christ preaching
Lion Hunt .
Mendiants, Homme et Femme
Mother of Rembrandt, portrait of .
Mother of Rembrandt, another portrait of
Naked man seated on the ground .
Omval, view of .
Presentation in the Temple
Repose in Egypt
Return of the Prodigal Son
Six, Bridge of . . .
Six (the Burgomaster), portrait of .
Sleeping Dog
Square Tower, Landscape with
Three Cottages, Landscape with
Three Crosses
Three Oriental Figures
Tower, Landscape with
Youth surprised by Death .
Uytenbogaert, the gold-weigher, portrait of
Draham Harbour
Durham
North Dock
ROCHEBRUNE, De .
CCLXXV. Chemin^e de TAtelier de Terre-Neuve, Vend^
CCLXXVI. Porte de I'Atelier de Terre-Neuve
RUSKIN
CCLXXVII.
CCLXXVIII.
CCLXXIX.
CCLXXX.
CCLXXXI.
CCLXXXIL
RUYSDAEL
ccLXxxin.
CCLXXXIV.
Arch from the Fa9ade of the Church of St Michele at Lucca
Capital from the lower arcade of the Doge*s Palace, Venice
Crests of La C6te and Taconay
Part of the Cathedral of St. Lo, Normandy
Pass of Faido. Simple topography
Window from the Ca* Foscari, Venice
Bridge, the LitUe
Travellers, the
PAGE
93
93
95
87
86
90
93
82
81
83
93
84
88
89
91
92
90
95
83
84
84
95
93
81
95
95
86
83
95
88
93
346
349
349
349
230
230
230
278
285
283
287
284
286
285
112
"5
"5
2 H
4S8
CATALOGUE INDEX.
Salvator ....
CCLXXXV. CBdipus, the Abandonment of
Sartirana, Duke of .
CCLXXXVI. £n Italie, La Peche aux Grenonilles
SOUMY ........ 150^
CCLXXXVII. Forges d'Allevar en' Dauphin^
Tayler .....
CCLXXXVIII. Day's Hunting in the Fens
ccLXXXix. Forester's Song
Trooftwyk ....
Turner .....
ccxc. Calm
ccxci. Dumbarton .
ccxcii. iEsacus and Hesperia
ccxciii. Inverary Pier. Loch Fjrne, Morning
ccxciv. Jason ......
ccxcv. Little Devil's Bridge, over the Russ above Altdorft
ccxcvi. Weedy foreground, man ploughing
Unger ........ 138,
ccxcvii. Buste de Femme, after Rembrandt
ccxcvili. Cephale et Procris, after a picture supposed to be by Goido
Reni
ccxcix. Chanoine, Portrait d' un after Antonis Mor Van Dashorst
ccc. Dormeur, le, after A. Van Ostade .
cccr. Eau Calme, after Willem Van de Velde the younger
cccii. Franz Hals and Lysl>eth Reyniers, his second wife, after
Franz Hals
ccciii. Governors of the Asylum for old men in 1664, after Franz
Hals ....
ccciv. Hail, Fidelity I also designated Sir Ramp and his Mistress,
after Franz Hals ......
cccv, Homme, Portrait de, after Tintoret
cccvi. Jeune Couple dans leur Salon, after Gonzales Coques
CCCVii. Paysage Montagneux, after Rembrandt
CCC VI II. Vachcs, Lcs Quatre, after Paul Potter
Vandyke ....
cccix. Snellinx, Joannes, portrait of
CCCX. Suttcmians, Justus, portrait of
CCCXI. Vorstermans, Lucas, portrait of
cccxil, Vrannx, Franciscus, portrait of
Veyrassat ....
cccxiii. Bac, le . . .
cccxiv. Comstack, making a
ViLLEVIEILLE ....
cccxv. En Picardie
CCCXVI. Nohant-Vicq
112
"5
141
X4I
233
233
3SO
351
351
140
261
271
26S
267
269
270
271
269
387
390
395
393
390
391
394
394
393
392
3S7
3S9
395
107
109
109
109
109
213
213
217
232
232
232
CATALOGUE INDEX.
459
FAGB
Waltnkr .......
376
cccxvii. Ang^lus, after Millet . . . ,
376
cccxviii. Dans la Rosee, after Carolus Daran
377
"Waterloo .......
113
cccxix. Study of trees . . . . ,
117
Weirotter ......
113
cccxx. Civita Vecchia . .
118
cccxxi. River scene ......
117
"Whistler ......
288
cccxxii. Girl leaning against a door-post
291
CCCXXI IL Black Lion Wharf ....
291
cccxxiv. Boats at a Mooring — Evening
293
cccxxv. Hungerford Bridge .
290
cccxxvi. Wapping, Wharf ....
291
"WiLKIE .......
273
cccxxvii. Bojrs and Dogs, or the Scat of Hands
273, 275
cccxxviii. Gentleman at his Desk
275
cccxxix. Pope examining a Censer . . . .
273, 274
cccxxx. Reading the Will . . . . .
273, 276
Wise ... . . . . .
. 381
cccxxxi. Triumph of Sdpio, after Mantegna .
. 381
WURTHLK ........
140
2^EMAN ........
119
cccxxx I L Marine Subject i .
121
CCCXXXI II. Marine Subject 2 .
122
cccxxxiv. Marine Subject 3 .
122
ZiMMERMANN ......
140
PrinUdby R. & R. Claxx, EtUnbttrgk.
Live Music
Archive
Librivox
Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland
Museum of Art
Internet
Arcade
Console Living Room
Open Library
American
Libraries
TV News
Understanding
9/11